Unhinged (AddisonandDerekandMark)
by RulerOfAllThatIsEvilChiFlowers
Summary: A Maddek FanFiction. What actually happened on that melancholy day? The day that Derek caught his wife in the throes of passion with his best friend. A sequential set of events that led to the infamous night with a twist. Set in New York. Prior to Grey's Anatomy. Addison/Derek/Mark #Maddek #Addek #Maddison
1. the morning in question

**A Tale of _AddisonandDerekandMark_ : Unhinged**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 _ **the morning in question**_

-:-

 _"Even good marriages fail. One minute you're standing on solid ground, the next minute - you're not. And there're always two versions. Yours, and theirs. Both versions start the same way though; both start with two people falling in love. You think yours is the one that's gonna make it. So it always comes as a shock. The moment you realise it's over. One minute you're standing on solid ground, the next minute, you're not."_

 _\- Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy 08x01_

* * *

In the dead of dawn in New York City, he lies awake, unmoving with his wandering mind on a whirlwind and the sounds of the world echoing around him.

He could stare at the ceiling for hours and hours on end and just ... think.

Stare and think. Stare and think. Stare and think, think, think ...

On most nights, the ceiling would be his blank canvas, tonight, though, it's his sleeping wife.

He could just stare at her for hours and hours on end too, counting the many moles she has engraved forever on her back.

Her clear complexity shines bright in the dark; she's all the light he ever needs. But now ... now, he doesn't know where to start counting or ... even, why.

 _Addison._

He once, many _many_ years ago, had actually spent the entire night - maybe even two or three or more since he probably had accidentally fallen asleep on the first few - documenting her every mole. From its size to its colour to its prominence. He doesn't know what it was but it just made him feel more secure, closer to her with the familiarity of every inch and every second of her flawless dermis.

 _Addison._

While she found it slightly obscure of the fact that someone had been observing, staring and documenting her as she slept, he just couldn't help himself. He's a romantic in the most arcane of ways. Besides he's not just _someone -_ stranger or stalker - he's _her_ husband.

He had counted them all, even had memorised them all. Numbers and placements. But now, he just can't seem to recall any of the tedious details.

 _Addison._

Tonight was the first night in days - maybe it's been a week or two, he can't really remember that he had actually slept on his own bed, on a comfortable memory foam, on crisp and freshly pressed linens, on a bed that he shared with his wife. But somehow, tonight wasn't the same as he had remembered.

It feels unfamiliar. New. But not the good kind of new, not the first night as newlyweds kind of new. It's as if the bed is on fire and he knows he should jump out and run, run and never look back, but he also knows he can't.

 _Was it him or was it her?_

Something has definitely _changed_. In both of them. He's not pointing fingers. But after years and years of familiarity, his home and his wife, who were once a constant, now seemed too foreign.

 _Addison._

He feels even more dreadful and uncomfortable here, on their very very costly Zenhaven natural latex memory foam mattress _("a $3,999 mattress is actually quite reasonable, Derek.")_ , than he would at the hospital's flimsy one. He's even feeling fatigued in his own home than he would at work. If Addison wouldn't overreact _(like she always does with everything he says.)_ , the hospital would be the best fit for him to call home.

Sadly, he have had blatantly expressed his discontent one too many times to her and he knew that had to really hurt.

 _Addison._

She took every harsh word and nonsense from him like a champ, not allowing his mere eloquence crush her. She've mastered the art of control. Sometimes he wishes he doesn't know her so well, so well like he knows the back of his hand, since he knows whenever she has _that_ look on her face, the look that held no emotions and the only thing she does is blink, he knows she's wounded.

She's hurt.

He's hurt her.

But of course, one can only take so much, and she too would lash back at him every now and then which almost always ends up in one of them leaving. After all, just like him, she's not made of steel.

 _Addison._

The longest they haven't spoken to each other was a little over three weeks. Not an utterance at home and definitely not at work. And if it was of dire of them to communicate at the hospital, they always know to be civil. But always, at the end of most of their feuds, it is her who ends up apologising.

 _Always_.

He's stubborn and he knows that.

Sorry is the hardest word.

She's trying, trying to keep them afloat while he has pretty much given up on their marriage a long time ago.

She's really trying.

He's not trying hard enough.

 _Addison._

His wife, the beautiful redhead he met over a decade ago in medical school when they were both still considered to be the _babies_ of PS. It was their first year. He had just turned twenty-one while she was on her way to be becoming legal.

Their love story; it was simple and sweet.

It all started in their campus library where on a blizzard January afternoon, her bright red head of hair and creamy complexion beamed in perfection and for the first time since starting at Columbia University, he _noticed_ her.

As he watched the gusty winds blew icy particles in all directions, blanketing what was the Hudson River and peeking a glance at her, who had caught his eyes, an announcement was made to inform all the studious inhibitors of their ill-fate, that they were to be stranded until further notice. It was for their safety since all roads in, out and throughout the city were deemed unsafe.

It had all seemed so irrational. Perfect even. The question of what the universe had planned for him was answered at that second. Being stranded in a library together with her couldn't have been more of an obvious sign that maybe, just maybe, he ought to talk to her.

 _His_ _fate_ , he convinced himself.

So, he did.

He gathered his things and most importantly, his newfound courage and confidence and marched right up to the table where she had her eyes practically glued to her Molecular and Cellular Physiology textbook and MCAT past papers.

"Oh, that's easy." he stated, after reading one of the questions off her paper, "The limbic system includes the limbic lobe as well as the associated subcortical nuclei, located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the cerebrum. It is associated with emotional responses, which is largely housed in the limbic system, and it has a great deal to do with the formation of memories. The integration of olfactory information with visceral and somatic information as well."

She looked up from the many pages and for the first time, their eyes spoke in a linger.

There was a spark, a forth of a second long, and he knew she saw it too.

He told her about it later, she said she saw it too.

He can tell by the way she pursed her lips that she's impressed by his level of confidence and nonchalant way of getting to sit with her.

"Is this seat taken?"

She gave him a bright smile.

"It now is."

He extended his right hand to her, flashing a gleaming grin, "Derek. My name's Derek Shepherd."

Her dreamy blues drowned in his and her lips curled into a smile and she willing shook his hand, tucking a lock of red behind her ears.

"Addison Montgomery."

 _Then_ \- he knew he was going to marry her.

 _Now_ \- he's not so sure of that decision.

He's forgotten why he married her eleven years ago.

It's unfair. To both of them. Mostly her. But him too.

He's so immensely sad that he feels this way.

He doesn't remember why he loves her.

But he loves her.

He knows he still loves her.

If he was asked on that cold afternoon who'd he want to spend the rest of his life with, he'd say her name in a heartbeat.

 _Addison._

If he was asked on that cold afternoon who's the one person that brings him joy and happiness, he'd say her name without a second to spare.

 _Addison._

If he was asked on that cold afternoon where he thinks his marriage will be in eleven years, he'd say on a path to happily ever after, along with their army of children.

But those questions were never asked and those _answers_ were never heard and he can now honestly say that he _would_ _have_ chosen her all the way.

 _Would have._

But it's been eleven years of matrimony and now, they're both on polar opposites.

Literally.

She's _hot_ , he's _cold_.

They, Addison-and-Derek, once had similar, if not the same goals - to be the best of the best, to be number one, to be the doctors hospitals run to. It was _that_ that fuelled their passion, but now, she has changed.

Or maybe it is he who has.

He raises his arm to reach out for her, her bare back that is facing him, but he can't. _Unreachable_. He can't reach her.

Perhaps, he doesn't want to. Or he's not trying hard enough. Or he doesn't even care to try. Or they're just too far apart, much like their marriage.

She wants something he cannot share with her anymore and that is time. Time is money, after all. He's a man on a dire mission, he needs to focus on his career. It's imperative of him to become Chief in the near future, five years from now, maybe even top as the youngest in the business, because this ambition and dream of his _(they do come true.)_ doesn't last forever. His career doesn't and wouldn't wait for him while his wife, on the other hand, does and would.

 _But why couldn't she just understand that?_

Time is of the essence.

The only way for him to accomplish what he was meant to accomplish on this planet was for him to be at the hospital, to be away from her, to not give her the time she so desperately craves.

They're in constant disagreement to literally anything and everything. They bicker and argue about the most nonsense and mundane of things. That's what they're really known for by all their colleagues and friends. _Everyone_ _knows_. It was obvious. One don't need sight to know where they were headed. Everyone knows where they were marching to, but they don't. They don't know anything because they're in denial

Just yesterday morning, after flying back from Chicago where he was asked to perform an endoscopic endonasal surgery in removal of a craniopharyngiomas on a young child, as she was leaving for work and as he sees her to the door, she wasn't too pleased with the way he had dumped his bags by the door and being the sleep deprived doctor that he was, he exploded. That in turn, began their long silence until tonight that is, as she nonchalantly suggested that they have sex.

* * *

 _The air choked with tension. Impending silence. But both of their brilliant minds were raising as they sat in bed, right next to each other with a distance that stretched further than the Great Wall, and supposedly reading whatever they had just snatched off the bookshelf._

 _If it wasn't for the fact that they weren't speaking to one another, she would've asked him to stop inhaling so much since he literally seemed to be hogging all the oxygen in the room. Leaving her to choke on whatever deathly was in the air._

 _She took a sip from her mug of camomile and went back to reading the book in hand, catching the sight of her husband in her peripheral view._

 _He has been on that exact same page since he crawled into the covers next to her. Not even a flip of the page was made on his part. He simply stared into the book, his loud breaths were really the only sounds in all the silence. She knows he's not reading but instead, thinking. And can only hope it's nothing too drastic._

 _"Let's have sex." she said quickly, all in one breath._

 _She doesn't even know where such thought came from. She wasn't even thinking about sex._

 _He chuckled lightly and furrowed his brows. He wasn't too sure whether he had heard her right. "Excuse me?"_

 _"Let's have sex." she said again, slower this time. Placing her book and black-rimmed glasses onto the nightstand, still a large distance between them._

 _"Addison..." he ran a hand tiredly through his sleek dark curls, "I don't think that's a good idea. I'm tired. You're tired. You've had a long day at the hospital..." his voice trailed off, leaving that as his counter argument, that they're tired._

 _Tired!_

 _They're not even in their forties yet._

 _She's not tired._

 _So, she quickly scooted over to him before he could even react, straddling him. Locking herself on top of him with her iron grip thighs. Kissing the angle between his neck and shoulder blades softly because she knows how much he likes - no, loves - that. Roaming her fingertips over his chest, she smiled to herself when she felt his hands grabbing her thin waist._

 _"Addison, what are you doing?"_

 _He was smiling up at her and she knows, undeniably, that he wants her just as much as she needs him, if the response from his body was any indication._

 _"Please, Derek..." she staggered, "We haven't had sex in months, ok."_

 _Maybe it was the desperation in her voice that had changed his mind because now his hands are sliding under her satin chemise, caressing the warm skin of her inner thighs and they both looked into each other's eyes, remembering how it used to be, how they used to be together, as one._

 _Familiarising their passion. Or trying to, at least._

 _He reached out to tuck the few strands that had fallen onto her face behind her ear and his fingers lingered at the curve of her neck as she pulled him in for a deeper kiss and he lifted her white nightie over her head, tossing it to the side._

* * *

 _What have they done?_

They're relationship has gone from bad to worse since then. _Beyond the_ _point of no return_. He doesn't want it to be the darn truth but it was.

Sex couldn't even save them from their drowning legal union anymore, like it used to. Sex was once their _saviour_. Sex was the only way they could reconcile, pretend and forget. Hot sex after a particularly bellicose day was their thing. Now, not so much.

He tried to enjoy the moment with his wife as much as he willed himself to. _To make it last_. He really did. He swore he had even dozed off for a second or two, mentally slapping himself when he had because he knows Addison would be further from livid. What's worse is that she would never forget and would never fail to remind him of it.

Somehow halfway through intimacy, he found himself wondering _when will this end_. And whether she liked to admit it or not, he knows she feel the same.

 _There was no excitement._

Boring.

As he watched her sleeping, counting the rise and fall of her breaths, he so desperately wants to go back to where the point of their impending doom, failing marriage, began.

 _Was it when he missed their anniversary for the first time six years ago? And almost all anniversaries after that?_

 _Or maybe it was his absence in many and most Christmases, birthdays and Thanksgivings?_

 _Was it when he kind of, sort of implied that it was her fault why, after almost a decade of trying to have kids, they still weren't pregnant?_

He really doesn't know when it all started but he'd really like to turn back time and find a way to take back all those hurtful words he used to say.

 _It's his fault, he's the reason why they're failing._

In realisation that maybe, just maybe that...

Suddenly, this house that he shared with his wife was closing in on him, seizing all his air supply. He doesn't want to be here anymore.

 _No! He really doesn't!_

He has to go somewhere, anywhere really. Maybe the hospital since that's the one a place where he can be himself.

It was a place of tranquility.

 _Happiness_...he just wants to be happy again since now, he definitely isn't.

 _Why?_

He doesn't know why.

He needs to void his mind of false thoughts and the hospital is his cave, his escape. Right now, he has basically exhaust himself with thoughts of his wife. He has done enough thinking about Addison in one night than he ever had in the last couple of years.

 _He always_ used to _notice her, how can he not?_

Although he would've gone to the hospital earlier in the evening, he wanted to show and prove to her that he's not absent like she claims he has been.

 _She's not happy._

He really don't think he's been _that_ absent.

He comes home when he can.

He tells her he loves her.

He kisses her on the cheek every morning and every night and even sometimes at work whenever they cross paths.

 _What else does she need?_

He've _noticed_ her enough.

 _She's unhappy._

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he ran his hands roughly over his face, exhaling with a loud puff in contemplation of his next move.

 _Should he stay and risk the awkward encounter that the morning holds to fill in the void and regret of last night?_

 _Or should he just leave and meet her when he meets her at the hospital?_

He knows he's decision.

With that he dragged his feet across the room, picking up the various articles of clothing that Addison, not too long ago, had tossed in the air.

"Derek?" her eyes fluttered open when she heard the squeak of the closet door, raising her hands to rub them.

Sleepiness still coating her voice.

Glancing out of the window for a brief moment, confused as to why he's up and that maybe the sun had already risen.

"Where are you going?" she asked, holding the comforter against her chest as she sat up and ran a hand through her tousled hair.

It was still very much dark outside.

"I didn't hear the phone or the pager go off."

She's a light sleeper, much lighter than he is. And would've instantly jump out of bed at the sound of a beep.

His soul almost crawled out of his skin at the faint echoes of her voice; startling him, feeling like he had just been caught in a lie. Turning around while buttoning his shirt, he's met with his wife's bright eyes. Eyes that once had him begging on his knees. Eyes that lured him to her. Eyes that, even in dim light, gathered a combination of surprise, confusion and maybe even a tiny linger of fear. He wondered the thoughts that were running through her mind; _Is he leaving?_

"I'm heading to the hospital. I gotta get an early start, Addison." he said, grabbing his grey coat off the hanger.

 _Early start?_

He had already been away for almost a week and now, he couldn't even be bothered to stay with her for just one night.

 _One night!_

She has never asked anything from him but to be a good husband.

What's worse is that he doesn't even look sorry or remorseful, he certainly doesn't care that he's leaving his wife for _something_ else. He doesn't care about anything else but the hospital. Not about her or their marriage. She's a doctor too, she knows the feeling but she doesn't make that her life, the only thing she breathes and lives for. Unlike he does.

The feeling of helplessness overtook her with rage and all she really wants is to scream at him. But she knows not to since that will only further fuel his conviction.

"Derek..." she began sweetly. After eleven years of marriage, she's somewhat the queen of manipulation. "Just come back to bed, ok? You haven't been home in weeks and...I miss you, Der." her lips curled into a smile and she knows she might look as though she's having a seizure with the copious amount of times she's been batting her eyes.

Her voice was soft and undemanding but he can hear the sheer desperation within.

"I got a lot of paperwork to tend to and patient files to review before surgery, Addison." he didn't even care to look her way, his tone sounding very much annoyed.

"Derek." she tried again.

He's now pacing across their beige coloured room, his hands thrust deep into his hair; scratching and mumbling incoherently.

"Addison, have you seen my briefcase?"

She didn't answer him, didn't even make a sound. Instead, crossed her arms over her chest, looking squarely at him.

 _Does he really think she's going to look for his briefcase for him?_

Crouching down, he yanked on all the drawers of the chest, slamming one after the other when his case still wasn't in sight. "Addison...did you even hear me? Have you seen my briefcase?" he raised his voice.

 _Anxious._

"Addison!"

She slammed her palms on the mattress, adamant to make her point, "Don't yell at me, Derek!"

 _They're past the point of no return._

She heard him sigh and can tell that he's forcibly collecting himself. "You know what?...Just forget it!"

 _Just forget it?_

 _Forgetting it_ was what they've always been doing and that hasn't even gotten them to forget. _Forgetting_ _it_ hasn't been getting them anywhere, instead drifting in a sea of nothingness.

"I'm not doing this with you right now!" he pulled himself to his feet.

His tone was cold and expressionless.

"And what exactly may that be, Derek? What are _WE_ doing? Please! Enlighten me!"

 _This really is their final threshold._

He doesn't know.

 _They're past the point of no return, where would they even go back to, if they weren't?_

Shaking his head, "Now is not the time, Addison." he turned away, marching for the knob.

 _When is?_

His heart was beating wildly and he stopped just as he twisted the doorknob. By the way his chest was rising and falling, he too isn't content with whatever they were doing at the moment.

 _Beyond the point of no return._

She's breathing hard, and her hands quivered slightly when she flung her hair out of her face, "When is it the right time, Derek? Never mind! I don't need you to answer that! You know what - Great! Go! Just! Go! Leave like you always do, Derek!...I know it's so hard for you to be here with me! Trust me, I get!" she didn't even bother to hide the sarcasm, "...for just one night, Derek...that's all I'm asking of you..." she shook her head and turn over on her pillow, burying her head in it.

 _They're past all thoughts of right or wrong but she has one question; how long should they, two, wait, before they're one again?_

"Addison..." he studied her curled poise draped under the covers, listening to her breathy pained cries. Contemplating whether he should comply and just stay, he exhaled deeply, "I'll see you at the hospital."

He just has to go.

She let out the deep sob she was holding back, breaking the skin on her knuckles with her teeth as she bit into them when the thought of him staying burst into flames.

They're beyond the point of no return and turning back to a time when they were content with one another wouldn't do them any justice. The real lingering angst will always and still be there; present and unfixed. It wouldn't be back to the way it used to be. They wouldn't be able to repair who they've both become. All of their games of make-believe is coming to an end and the bridge, that is their marriage, has been crossed through unsteady waters, now all they can really do is stand and watch it burn.

They've passed the point of no return.

* * *

 **Hey guys! This is my first ever Grey's Anatomy fanfiction! I love Addison! God! I just freaking heart her! I know I'm super late to the party but you know what they say…it's never too late to….**

 **Thanks so much for reading! And let me know what you think or what I shall improve. I'd love for you to review!**


	2. the night in question (1)

**A Tale of _AddisonandDerekandMark_ : Unhinged**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 _ **the night in question**_ _ **(1)**_

-:-

 _"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."_

 _\- John Green, Looking for Alaska_

* * *

She wanted to breathe, and he did too.

They are the same hard liquor burning down your throat, to your core, and to your brain. The same wayward souls.

They are both fucked up. Not that much, though. Just enough for them to know how much better their lives would be if they weren't themselves.

They are both a little dead inside. And she likes that. She likes the company because then she wouldn't feel alone and unwanted anymore.

They are the same difference.

But she also likes to tell herself that they're nothing alike, the two of them. Then, she always realises she's fooling herself a half second after she mistakenly denies their likeness.

She knows, she always knows they shouldn't ever be within ten miles of each other, because, as it happens, they always end up tied together somehow sooner or later. And it's easy, it's fun, he gets her like no one has ever and ... her shackles comes up and she's not herself anymore.

Because she will always be inevitably drawn to him, to the kindred spirit she sees in him that makes her dream of what-if, of who she wishes she could be.

Without pain and fear and mistakes. Because with him, they all wouldn't matter.

Problem is, she doesn't even know who she is without all those contributors.

Pain causes anger and fear causes drama.

Derek, the cause of her _pain_ and _fear_ he'd lose interest in her.

Maybe he already has.

She's smiling right now as she sits at her vanity brushing her hair, trying to stop torturing herself with mundane memories and get herself ready for her dinner with her husband ( _a date, if you will, a very rare occurrence these days_.) - the woman in the mirror, her smile looks troubling, concerning, doesn't reach her eyes - but the light inside her is slowly dying.

 _Deceit. Betrayal. Forlorn._

Or it probably already has.

 _Probably_.

The way a candle dies has always amazes her. It shines, then it melts, then drips, drips until all that is left is a hardened puddle.

It sounds like her - how she feels, how she is inside.

She's a candle.

 _Would anyone pity her?_

 _Does he pity her?_

She wonders if he knew, if he knows, if he pities her.

 _Maybe._

Because why else would he be at her home more times than her own husband has this past year.

 _Is it because he feels responsible?_

Her dear husband did kind of, sort of _mentioned_ whilst in a heated argument that he only asked her to marry him because his best friend had put that idea in his head.

But then, you know, no one actually means what they say when they're angry, especially if your wife's been a nagging bitch.

 _Right?_

She's the dying candle and he's the wind that's slowly blowing her flame. All it takes is one last huff.

Pressing her fingertips to her lips, she feels the same overwhelming feeling of nerves and duress growing in her belly - in fact, it feels like it has worsened, magnifies the feelings she felt when he locked lips with her.

 _Again_.

She had been starving for over a decade, she didn't know it until three months ago.

The strength of his arms will always be nearly enough to wash away any doubt she's ever had concerning their ever-evolving relationship status.

 _Pretend. Act. Try._

She traded in one secret for another when Derek's little sister walked in on them. _Kissing_. Just kissing. Then again, if Amy hadn't caught them, who knows what would have happened.

 _Is she that easy?_

And when she went home to her husband that evening and kissed him a hello, she realised that it is very possible to hate herself a lot more than she already has.

And no matter how hard she tries - _they_ both try, they cannot hate themselves into being a good person.

She clutches her wrist in her own hand, adding pressure, adding intensity, adding heat, just like he did.

The woman in the mirror - she looks particularly overcome ... ruined. Her smile has faded, fallen, _only_ _God knows,_ somewhere on the bathroom floor.

Keeping it up is tedious and tiresome, takes time and energy she does not have.

She remembers when his hand curled around hers for the first time, rough fingers sinking into her white, porcelain skin. Her heart seized to beat in her chest at the touch of his fingertips.

There was fire. There was blood.

There were tears in her eyes from the cold wind that whipped at their faces, the music from the party blared loudly behind them but it all just seemed so far, far off.

She gasped when her foot slipped on loose gravel and he caught her almost instantaneously, like a reflex, one large hand slipped around her waist, the other burned _marks_ on her wrist.

" _... Careful ..._ "

Maybe it was the way he looked at her. Maybe it was the way he held her. Maybe it was the way he touched her. Maybe it was the way he sounded - the low gruff of his voice had butterflies erupting deep in her.

Somehow, she found herself locked in a trance and she cannot comprehend why. Completely wrapped in his grasp, her arms were around his neck and she could feel the rapid beating of his heart against her own.

Maybe that is the issue in hand, he's always here, there, present and ready to catch her whenever she's falling.

 _Figuratively and literally._

She purses her lips, runs her fingers through her hair, dark and damp from a shower, whispering between her shoulder blades.

 _Why is she already feeling this so deeply?_

This isn't how she thought her life would turn out to be.

Married to one. Dreaming about another.

 _Love, lust. Lust, love. Is there even a difference?_

She was twenty-three when she first kissed him. The scandal of it all ignited a fire in her - adrenaline, she was fuelled by him.

And she didn't stop him.

And maybe she didn't want to.

But she knows she was wrong, she was playing with fire that night because Derek was just in the other room, barely even, since they were right on the second-floor balcony at the Vanderbilts' residence.

The scruff of his jaw scratched her cheek as he pulled away and when she looked into his eyes, saw that he was not at all her boyfriend, she was instantly hit with guilt and regret.

The thing that just happened with her boyfriend's best friend, the consequences of it, his reaction when she tells him, _if_ she tells him - it all came crashing down in a panic, reality, possibility hit her hard and her head spun wildly.

She was sure to apologise before bidding to move past him. She needed to leave, needed to get away from him, away from this mistake. "Sorry. I, I can't —"

"Addison, wait."

Unfortunately, he was not so quick to get rid of her, as she was of him. He maintained his firm grip on one of her arms, pulling her back towards him. "Let me explain."

The tip of his nose was red, his cheeks too - she doesn't know why she remembers those details.

" _Mark_ ..."

" _Red_. Please."

"What do you want from me?" There was a crack in her tone, she heard it and she knew he heard it too because not a second later, he released her arm.

But she didn't make her move to run back into the house.

 _Why?_

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he cupped his hands together and blow into them before shoving them back into the pockets of his jacket.

They both stared up at the sky and the moon and the stars, at the darkness with a few streetlights being their only source of light, and the deafening silence between them was sucking them into oblivion.

That is, until he shifted in his place, moving to stand in front of her. "You know, it's funny ... when you look at someone through rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags," he smiled, reaching up to smooth the lines where her brows had pull together.

Her heart sunk when his eyes flitted to hers, blazing even in the darkness.

"What I'm saying is," he paused and she watched the way his eyelashes meet the top of his eyelid as he breathed out heavily, blowing clouds of smoke out into the air. "I really like you, Addison ..."

A deep blush formed on her cheeks, her mouth turned down in a frown and she adamantly shook her head. "What? No, you don't. No ... you can't."

"Do you actually believe that?"

Her throat swell up at the sound of such sadness in his voice and she shrugged. "I don't know. You're — You do this, Mark, all the time. I see you string girls along — a dozen of girls all at the same time, then break their hearts ... This kind of stuff — the emotional stuff — _love_ ... it's not your thing."

He was quiet first before he chuckled - it still didn't mask the defeated look he had on his face. "Well, I guess me explaining it's different with you wouldn't change your mind. I probably shouldn't have said anything —"

"You think!" she exclaimed harshly and slapped him on the shoulder with a force she was not expecting.

He simply stared at her.

 _Hurt. Crushed. Shocked._

There could've been tears in his eyes, she wasn't sure.

"Why did you have to tell me that?"

Her words scorned him, scarred him to ever love again, a very drunk Mark told her years ago. And what's great about that is he doesn't even remember that he did, still doesn't, which means she can continue on pretending on her own terms.

She huffs wordlessly and lowers herself down onto the bed she shares with her husband. _Flannel sheets_. The dress she'll be wearing tonight had been dry cleaned and pressed, laying pretty on the bed beside her.

Her eyes scream at the ceiling, painting with regret - she doesn't need more of it, doesn't need to drown in any more grief.

She hates being alone with her thoughts because she always - _almost_ always ends up thinking about him.

It's a cynical cycle.

 _(same. maybe subconsciously, she wants to be miserable.)_

Those words still echo through her head long after she's said it.

 _You're ..._

Though they complete themselves a few months after the funeral.

She shuts her eyes when they begin to sting. Her chest feels raw, her heart cut open and bleeding.

Her husband hates her and she doesn't blame him.

 _You're not here._

Three years ago.

 _You're not here._

Everything was effortless when he was here.

She loved him more than life itself.

He deserves life so much more than she does.

She didn't know what triggered it. She never really knew. It could be anything, really, even the most little of things could set her off now, the most unrelated and insignificant. But she still remembers the day she had her first panic attack - one minute she was walking towards the nurses' station, calling out to her favourite nurse for a patient's chart, and the next she was huddled against a wall, her heart too fast a beat and her breath too quick.

She was certain her heart was going to sprint right out of her chest.

Dimly, she sensed the nurse's worry as she ran over to her, her hands reaching for her, and a doctor that had been passing by was startled, jarred by the sight of her sudden crumpled form.

There were other voices too. Lots of them. People whispering. Doctors' curiosity. Gasps of concern.

A circle of drama and orders being shouted.

 _Doctor. Shepherd. Addison. Derek. Get. Surgery. Hurry. Okay. You. Are. Page. Happened. Is. What. Breathe. Mark. Down. Breathe. Relax. Calm. Sloan. Space._

Pairs and pairs of eyes, watching her intently and all she wanted to do was curl up in a closet and hide, as she used to as a child. Her lungs were too shallow to take in a breath and her heart felt like lead inside her. But then, there was Mark, his deep voice steady, calming and she vaguely heard him shooing everyone away.

"Move it, people. Nothing to see here."

She remembers feeling so indebted to him at that moment that whatever fucked up things he had said and done to her over the years had officially seized to even exist.

"Addison, it's okay," he was telling her, "You're okay. Just take deep breaths."

She pressed her forehead to her knees and focused on breathing, trying to remember how to fill her lungs all the way, but her mind kept leaping back to the day at the park.

"Slow breaths, Addison."

She had this crazy idea that if he was there he would be able to coax the oxygen back into her trembling body. "I want to go. I just want to go home. I want to go home —"

"What? What?" He couldn't understand her through all the tears and congestion.

"I just want to go home." she hiccuped after every word.

"Okay."

"I want to go — go home, Mark."

"We'll go home." he whispered into her hair.

He drove her home that afternoon as approved by their Chief, then deposited her onto the sofa with a glass of water and a blanket while he retreated to the kitchen in the guise of making her something to eat when really, he was on the phone trying to get her husband to come home early.

"Derek?"

"Still in surgery."

He was lying but she nodded anyway.

"I'll, um, stay with you until he comes home."

It became a little easier to breathe, but she still kept her head bent forward, her back a defeated, sloping arch.

"Addie, everything will be okay."

Something came undone deep inside her, and she began to cry again. She was too beyond hopeless to really care anymore, but there was something almost surreal about the tears.

She really didn't know who they were for.

 _Him. Him. Or him._

He crouched down in front of her and put his hands on her knees. "Addison ..."

She drew in a shaky, shuddering, hiccuping breath and forced herself to meet his eyes. She knew she looked terrible but it was hard to care when his face looked like that.

It was as if a veil had been lifted.

There was something deeply familiar about the way he was looking at her - the warmth in his eyes, the concern, the _love._

That was the face of the man she had been missing. Her husband doesn't look at her like that anymore.

Her body leaned forward without any real direction from her brain. She pressed her face into the crook of his neck and willed herself not to sob openly.

It took him a second, but then his arms were around her.

 _(she was so tired.)_

He held her long and tight, no complaints.

His smell was deeply comforting, intoxicating. She liked the way it flowed into her body along with the oxygen.

She could breathe again.

She breathed deeply.

 _(he'd caught again.)_

"I'm scared I'll forget his voice."

She is still scared.

She turns to her side, curls in on herself, and presses her forehead hard into the pillow. She doesn't see black like she wants to, she sees the day she laid him to rest.

 _July_.

She purses her lips against the bitterness that swells through her chest, but they still quiver, her face contorts, screws and twists in pain as she sobs.

She hasn't forgotten his voice.

Her knees had buckled beneath her and she landed solidly on the damp soil.

It had finally rained. _Finally_. After weeks of the heat, New York was raining again.

"He's going to heaven," she said to her husband, voice coarse with tears. She isn't one to be superstitious, not at all, but this one just stuck with her when she overheard such from an older woman at the funeral home.

Her husband knelt down beside her, his hands hard on either side of her face. "Addie ... of course, he is," he whispered, defeated.

There was something else too, a blink of an emotion in his eyes.

 _Blame_. He blames her.

She whispers his name.

He left a mark that she wears proudly on her chest. Above her heart, to remind her that she feels the best when she's with him.

She can live with the torment of her life, can live with the years worth of reminders and words said slashed across her skin. She can live without her husband, without everything she loves about her old life, but she cannot live without her little boy.

Maybe she ought to take another shower so she can't tell if she's crying or not.

* * *

 _ **. . . 1991 . . .**_

* * *

"What would you do without me?"

"Find inner peace, attend classes without being stalked in the process, talk without being interrupt —"

"It was a hypothetical question," he says, rolling his eyes. She watches him lean back against the wall, shoving a hand into his pocket and she clutches her books to her chest tighter, waiting for him to explain himself now that they're both free from alcohol.

But she takes the initiative when it looks as though he wouldn't. "So, what is this, Mark?" she asks, treading cautiously, gesturing to the space between them. "Is it that you still ... _like_ me?"

His eyes widen, and she's pleased with his momentary panic. She can practically see his thoughts running a race in his mind and his jaw clenches in defense.

"Define _like_."

It's a simple command, but it was enough to fill her with a rush of ... _excitement?_

"You have a crush on me," she states, marvelling at the assertion, and she lets out a little laugh under her breath,"And you've come to try and satiate it."

"I'm not —"

"Is it seeing something you can't have?" she eagerly persists, braving a step towards him, close enough to smell his cologne and the last remaining scents of his shaving cream.

At their proximity, he is quick to notice how warm and brazen she is. He quirks a brow, clearly surprised by her analysis of their situation. But before he could correct her, before he could clarify that he can very well make her his if he were to strategise the right way, she went on. "It's all one big challenge for you, isn't it?"

She sounds truly curious, her voice dropping low in the silent hall.

He thinks about her question again, considering his answer before responding.

He thought better of it.

"What's this that you're always reading?" he asks, tapping the leather bound novel at the top of her pile of books.

She frowns at the quick change in subject, glancing down at the book.

"You always were a little nerd."

"Your insults aren't even slightly endearing, Mark."

"The book, Red," he insists. "Tell me."

She sighs, revealing the first aged page to him. "If you must know, it's The Art of War by Sun Tzu."

He didn't miss a beat, quickly laughs a muffled chuckle, all the while a wide grin spreads on his face. "Of course it is."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's an ancient text on war, Addison," he smirks. "I just expected it to be —"

"What? Some moronic romance novel? I'm not twelve," she rolls her eyes, tapping her finger to the cover of the book. "It's a necessity. You of all people should know that medical school might as well be a battleground."

"And what an adorable little dictator you must have been in your previous life," Mark muses.

She groans at him, irritated by his taunting. "Don't patronise me, Mark," but finally, she lets out a small sigh, allowing a tiny confession to slip. "My grandmother gave it to me when I was younger, before she passed away. It's a special edition. Only two were made in the year it was printed, and this —" She traces her fingers over some sort of scrawled message inside the cover. "— is one of them."

A strange look of revelation crosses his face then, his lips parting in recognition. "Really? I —" He cuts off when he sees Derek sauntering over to them with a chippy grin on his face, she turns around to see why the sudden change.

Mark blanches when Addison shifts away from him, her eye line never reaching his before returning Derek's smile with a kiss.

* * *

Sometimes she wishes life wasn't such a tragic labyrinth ... that she would remember what she had dreamt of at night so she'd have a traced path before her in the morning, that he wouldn't continually muddle with her mind whenever he feels is of his convenience ... that she could be strong enough to withstand his _'charm'_ so he wouldn't always immerse himself so effortlessly into what is supposed to be her life.

When she was a little girl she believed in fairytales, dreamed of a dashing young knight to carry her away on his white horse into happily ever after.

The earliest memory she's had of the Captain had to be - well, there was a very brief moment in her childhood when her daddy would actually act like one and not the womanizer she now knows him to be. He used to sit her on his knee and read her bedtime stories, whisper that someday her prince would come along and make all her dreams come true.

"Someday, _Kitten_ , you're going to meet the perfect boy and get married and have babies and make me the proudest grandpa in all the land. And if he hurts you, I'll kill him."

She would then spend the next ten plus years dreaming of the day her world of make-believe would be real.

And when she had lost all hope, Derek came into her life and she thought she'd finally found a prince - her prince - a beautiful boy with a strong passion and heat burning in his eyes and a special smile just for her. Derek, who said he would love her forever and take her on grand adventures and guard her heart and dreams. Derek, who made her feel safe and loved above everything else. She'd thought she'd found her happily ever after in his arms their first night together. With the stars shimmering above, she remembers grass scrapping the fragile skin of her spine, and strong fingers gripping her hips, hard, slick heat pulsing inside her.

Then she was so sure he was going to be her husband one day.

And then Mark came along, crept up behind her with his games and taunts and unwanted remarks _(complements?),_ breathing excitement in her ear she wishes she had never heard, and all her dreams turned into a living nightmare.

There were tears and regrets and her whispering against Derek's throat, "I'm so sorry, Derek. God, I'm so sorry …" But it didn't matter, doesn't matter, because her perfect prince was all wrong, his silver lining tarnished and chipped, his sparkle dimmed ... her happy ending shattered as quickly as it started.

 _When did her life become such a complex maze?_

 _When did he equate to something that ached and yet hurt within?_

 _When did her mind come to float around the idea of Mark?_

He pushed, and she shoved back, harder and harder until one of them would break.

She had hoped his _(Derek's)_ jovial and cheerful and kind manner would rub off on her.

But then again, she's got this gaping wide hole inside of her that nobody but he _(Mark)_ understands.

There is something fundamentally wrong her.

 **xxx**

The sun is setting - slowly, surely, definitely.

High above the fading light, where the sun kisses the earth, the sky burns with prismatic _envy_.

It's a sky painted just for her, she like to think so.

Blinding beauty through unadulterated sunlight, she is fleeced like a lamb, watching in awe ... in wonder. Then, the stomping sounds of a coming thunder startles her, finding depth and height out in the stratosphere.

She should have known, she should have at the very least expected it, because it's that beautiful and precious and those are the things that don't last forever. Not even something as beautiful and innocent and precious as a child.

Sighing, the mug in her hands is the only thing that's keeping them from trembling. She can almost feel the weight of it all in her body - sinking, drowning, slumping.

She's in a daze ... as she is reaching, staring out the window.

It's fading away.

It's beautiful.

It's rare.

Because they live in Manhattan and supertall skyscrapers and architectures aren't ideal for watching sunsets, but today - today is _different_.

Today must be a sign.

And she'll interpret said sign as a positive.

A new start. A new beginning. A new _them_.

 _Unhurt. Unharmed. Untouched._

She's doing whatever possible to save their marriage.

She's trying. She shamelessly is. But nothing she has been doing seems to be working in her favour.

She even tried making him his favourite dinner for crying out loud, because _they_ say the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But everyone knows she cannot cook, including Derek. And as that backfired when he shouted at her that she's incompetent at doing anything right, they had another one of their infamous fights - yes, as in, it got physical. Then again, it was mostly her that had used hands and feet.

 _(in his defense, she almost did gave herself third-degree burns, so his concern/outburst was substantiated and much appreciate because that meant he still cared about her.)_

But it wasn't enough, the assurance didn't last long.

She's trying to save them in the best way she knows how, because nothing is working anymore. Because once upon a time, most of their fights, whether massive or petty, ended with him pinning her to a wall, the couch, the bed, feeding the fire inside of her with the drape of his body until they were both left cooling in the embers.

Few things in her life were better than making up with Derek after a fight.

Their passion was always burning, so alive and vivid. The fact that their bad moments together could be just as rich as their best only reaffirmed how beautiful their relationship was to her.

Now, it's like he doesn't care, doesn't care to fight for her, for their love and marriage and for everything they went through together.

It's like he's given up on what they _have_ \- on what they had.

 _All that history._

This dinner is all she has left. They'll talk and she'll tell him how she feels.

 _Derek will be coming home tonight._

All she has is hope.

She's gotten herself all made-up and dressed in a red dress she bought especially for tonight.

It's not something she'd willing pick out of a rack at the store nor one that would be approved by Bizzy - off-the-shoulder, ample legs plus a slit that if she's not careful enough, it'd be her fanny to the wind.

But what else can she do.

She looks like Bloody Mary. Not the drink, though. A walking, living, breathing, barely functioning version. But it's okay because Derek loves her in red.

Because maybe he'll notice her.

* * *

 ** _. . . 1983 . . ._**

* * *

It is often said that the most important lessons in life are learnt outside the classroom.

The painful truth about the state of a relationship, the ugly cost of challenging authority, the price to pay in tarnishing a reputation, the sad fact that life's colours aren't always rosy.

Then, there are those who just refuse to accept these important lessons and that's because they simply want to teach a lesson of their own.

Addison, for the longest time, has always considered her life to be a steady stream of screwed up scenarios and alternate endings to the cracked film reel that is her expectations.

But expectations only feeds the frustration and expectations are recipes for pre-meditated resentments.

Mostly to one's own self, of course.

Because had her insolent tutee not cancelled their weekly appointment, then she wouldn't have to grace the Debevoise' with her presence at their wedding in the early summer of 1983.

Because had her boyfriend, Carter McGrath, known that she was going to make an appearance that evening, he would have steered clear of a certain seductive blonde.

Because had she worn her red Azzedine Alaïa rather than her blue Alexander McQueen, she wouldn't have had a wardrobe malfunction that needed to be fixed in an empty room ( _or so she thought it was._ ).

Because had the day started as originally planned and had a wicked wind not swept through the city on that first day of summer, she would have never walked right into a _bare_ _(literally)_ disaster.

"Oh my God," she cries, her heart sinking and flaring as fast as lightning, blaring all at once. She's frozen, unable to pry her eyes away from her boyfriend and best friend, half-naked and entangled on one of the rickety bar-stools.

"I, I can't believe this."

The anger and the betrayal are welling up fast in her chest, too heavy to anchor her up right anymore.

 _Her boyfriend and best friend._

It overpowers the all-consuming panic that still ripples in her with every breath, "You ... two ..."

And then, she's shaking her head vigorously, can't want to believe what she's witnessed, and backs away from the scene of the crime as they scramble to make themselves decent.

"Addie. Addie!" Lisa calls out, trying to catch up to her as quickly as she can, "Sweetie, it wasn't — we weren't — you have to hear me out. It's not what it looks like. I'm so sorry. Addison — wait, I'm really sorry. Please —"

Turning around, she pauses, looks at her in disbelief.

 _Does she thinks she's that stupid?_

She knows what she had just witnessed. She wishes she didn't.

Maybe it'd be better not knowing.

Her best friend and her boyfriend.

"Sorry for what —" she snaps, "You know what, I can't talk to you — I, I can't even look at you right now. You're my best friend, Lisa. How could you do this to me?" she blinks back the oncoming pool of tears when she glances behind her ex-best friend, at Carter. "And you —" she points sharply.

"Addie — I made a _mistake_."

"A _mistake_?" she scoffs, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to rediscover her breath for the second time today, "What were you trying to put it in? Her purse?"

"Baby, I'm sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened."

She turns her back on them and buries a hand in her hair, digs her nails into her scalp.

She can't cry right now.

But she's done everything he asked her to do for him, given him whatever he wanted from her. He's her first for everything and that's supposed to mean something in their relationship. _Right?_ It's what a good girlfriend should do. She didn't want him to leave her just because she wouldn't give it up. It happened to Mindy and no boy even looks at her like that anymore and no girl wants to be seen with her.

"Both of you," she says with a deep sigh, her voice colder than she's ever heard before. A grave parallel to Bizzy. "Both of you are dead to me."

And then, she drags the scraps of her dignity from the floor - at least she tries to ( _but she thinks there's none left, not even crumbs_.) - fleeing the room and pushing her feet back into the main ballroom, where the bride and groom are sharing their first dance.

She tries to follow along - happy, they all look so happy, all smiles and genuine contentment, and she wonders how amazing it'd be to feel like that. _Happy_. _Content_. So, she fixes her hair and pulls her lips into a semblance of a smile, trying to _pretend_ as though nothing had happened.

That's the secret to happiness, she's come to learn, pretending is easy, pretending is all she has to do, because eventually she'll forget she was even pretending in the first place.

But it's easier said then done tonight. And she feels ill when she hears their incriminating pitter-patter chasing after her.

"Addison."

She rolls her eyes, her throat ripples with a swallow that goes down hard and at that moment, something takes over her, something twisted and exasperated and her head spins when Lisa grabs at her arm.

"Addison, just hear _us_ out —"

"It wasn't enough for you, was it?" her voice rises then, gaining the attention of a few of the wedding guests.

She's drawing attention to herself, she knows, but she doesn't really have a care in the world right now because she's fuelled with adrenaline and rage. But if this isn't going to kill her right here and right now, Bizzy will, so she really needs to get a grip of herself and the tears that haven't yet, but surely will, fall.

 _All well brought up women conceal their emotions. Emotions are frowned upon._

"You knew how I felt about Carter. You knew everything and you used it against me. First, you just had to go and tell _my_ mother about _my_ problem without so much as speaking to me first. You had to push me down so I'd permanently stay in your shadow," she shakes her head, recalling Lisa's guilt stricken face after she told Bizzy about her suspicious trips to the bathroom.

It had taken all of her false sincerity to forgive her for that. But this - this is way too much. She's totally over the line - no, she's so far past the line, she can't even see the line. The line is a dot to her.

"And you just had to have Carter too."

"No —"

"You take everything from me," she finally shouts, can't contain the outrage any longer, can't feel past the exasperation and agony, the pressure and torment of everything that comes with a broken heart.

"Addison, you have to calm down."

It's Carter pleading with her now. Guilt blooming through his features, remorse, but - no, no, he is the one who's making her feel this way. He's the one who's shattered her heart into a million pieces. His voice and movements, everything is just infuriating her even further and what's making her feel worse is the fact that he's still, even now, standing beside Lisa. His body gravitating towards her, like a magnetic pull, as if she is the centre of his fucking universe.

"Addi —"

And from there on, at her misfortune, everything went downhill - _unbeknownst to her at that time, of course_ \- because, on contrary to popular belief, the thing that happened that night is still up for debate.

She would insist what happened next was truly just an accident.

Because she had only meant to slap away Lisa's grip, maybe throw in a pinch in the process, when she tried to pull her aside and away from further making a scene.

Because how on earth was she suppose to know that the Debevoise' seven-tier cake would roll in just as she pushed her hand away.

It happened, though, and she may or may not have pushed her with a tad more force than needed.

She was angry and justifiably too.

 _Right?_

Everything and everyone was in pin drop silence, even the pianist stopped and they all just watched and waited as Newton's second law of motion proved itself. She gasps in succession with the crowd, raising a hand to her mouth as all eyes turned to her in horror.

Bizzy is going to murder her and no one is going to stop her.

 _It was an accident._

It really was an accident. But somehow she thinks no one is ever going to believe her.

 _Bizzy is going to kill her._

She feels like she's spinning but she don't think she really is. Everyone is still staring at her like she's an infestation that needs to be exterminated. Hers are flickering across the room, snagging on glimpses as Carter and the catering staff scramble to help Lisa up, who's now dressed in vanilla cake and swiping frosting from her face.

For a split second as she knows her life has officially ended, everything stills in the whirlwind of her mind, and then she's startling on Bizzy's fiery sea of rage in her view, her stony expression marching towards her.

She swallows back a small cry, wishing she could just crawl under a rock and never come out ever again.

"Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery," her mother hisses, heels echoing loud in the ballroom as she stomps over to her. Her features are sharp and blunt, absent of any emotion as she yanks her arm, not lightly at all, and tugs, dragging her away from the party while the crowd whispers.

"Mother, it was an accident."

 _How was that dreadful girl raised?_

 _Honestly, I'm so embarrassed for Beatrice. This behavior is unacceptable._

 _I always knew she would go crazy._

 _That's Archer's little sister. You know, that boy who crashed his father's car into a tree in the Hamptons last summer._

 _Oh, my. They're all vile. Poor Bizzy. She's so lovely._

"Bizzy, I, I didn't push her. She slipped — It was an _accident_ —"

"Oh, you are a pathetic, _pathetic_ excuse for a human being, Addison," Bizzy says once they're away and out of earshot.

"Bizzy, you have to understand," she follows her mother into the grand hallway, trying her best not to stumble on her own feet, "Carter, he was cheating on me with Lisa. I just —"

"And you _just_ felt the need to embarrass me —" she interrupts, "— our entire family with your tantrum? Do you know what they'll say about _me_ after this? Those twits — Alma Hodge, Eleanor Williams — oh, they'll have a field day, the entire country club. You've caused irreparable damage, Addison."

"Bizzy," she persists, her voice cracking. "You have to see what she's doing. She's sabotaging me on purpose. This is what she wants. She's playing games."

"The only games being played are by children like you," Bizzy seethes, sinking her nails deeper into her arm with her every word.

She whimpers.

"I was perfectly fine with supporting you through your eating disorder — but this ... you're more of a hindrance than you are worth. So, you better grow up to be something great, to make up for all the damage you've done."

"How can you say that, Bizzy?" she recoils from her mother at the insult, her hands trembling behind her back, "I'm your daughter."

"Yes, you are," she nods, her voice tight. "And you will be my daughter at Exeter."

 _Exeter_. Bizzy can't throw her away to boarding school _(basically juvenile detention for the elite.)_ when she wasn't the one at fault.

"Mother, no, Bizzy, please, I'll apologise to the Debevoise. I promise —"

"You will leave in August," her mother cuts her off calmly, and she bites at the insides of her cheeks, willing herself to not lose too much of her makeshift composure, "Your father and I have been discussing this for a while now and we think Exeter is what's best for you and _your_ future."

Shaking her head, she's both astonished and repulsed because for the first time in sixteen years, her parents made a mutual decision together. A conspiracy against her. "My future? I know what I want for _my_ future, Bizzy."

She's going to be a surgeon.

"I don't need your help in deciding _my_ future for me. I've been getting straight-As all my life. I have a perfect attendance. I'm in almost every club there is. I never get detention. I have never done anything wrong my entire life and now, one time, and it wasn't even my fault, I did not push her, and, you're exiling me to boarding school — No, I'm not going. You can't make me go!"

"Addison," Bizzy huffs out, exasperated, and she watches her steadily. "You will not have a future here, especially if you continue with that kind of behaviour — chasing after a boy who clearly doesn't respect you isn't worth —"

"Oh, and you think The Captain respects you?" she says, heavy with spite. Her mother's face is unchanged. "He's screwing his secretary and most likely yours too. He screwed nannies, housekeepers, chefs away — and not to mention, my French tutor. And it's all happening under your nose and we all know about it and _you're_ still sticking around."

"I know you don't see it right now because you think you're in love, but you're going to do something so impulsive for him that you will end up in prison. Or worse, you'll get knocked up by that loser, living in, God forbid, Bridgeport with three kids by your eighteenth birthday. Dear, open your eyes, Carter is a stupid piece of shit. I'm just saving you from yourself."

"Carter is not a stupid piece of shit," she murmurs and she sees her mother roll her eyes in disappointment. "And I don't need to be saved."

"That boy is going to ruin your life."

She breathes, trying her damn hardest to keep her voice calm and levelled when she's anything but, "Please Bizzy, I promise I won't see him anymore."

"Our decision is final."

"Bizzy! You can't —" And with that, her mother smacks her across the face, and she stumbles back against the wall with a shriek. "You will not raise your voice at me. Addison, I've had it with you." she shouts, poking a finger to her temple harshly. She only stands there, shaking and sobbing.

The print on her face stings but she thinks it's mostly because she's embarrassed Bizzy and herself tonight.

"You don't know how _lucky_ you are to have me as your mother, young lady."

"I know you must hate me right now." _well, that part is accurate,_ "And when you have a child, only then you will understand why we're doing this for you."

More tears spill. She can't stop them.

"If I ever have a kid, I will only care if they're _happy_."

"Happy?" her mother chuckles, the smile not reaching her eyes, "What's happy? That's a term for stupid people."

* * *

 _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick_ \- there goes the grandfather clock.

 _(fun fact, it actually belonged to her grandfather, Sir Samuel Addison Montgomery. Very antique and historical and very much from the old country, which in her case is Ireland.)_

It's past eight now.

She's texted. She's tried calling her husband. She's still silently sitting by her lonesome, waiting for Derek, but now, she's progressed to staring at the door with a drink in her hand.

She needs to drink to take control of her emotions. She needs to drink so she wouldn't have to be her _'normal'_ nagging self. She needs gin to not pick a fight with Derek tonight. She needs to be just-barely-there lucid but not drunk at all to survive tonight's dinner.

 _Who is she kidding? It's forty minutes past their reservation._

She tells herself not to nag, not to shout, not to be mad at him for not even informing her that he won't make it.

 _It's okay. It's okay._

They'll just reschedule, like they always do. It's not a big deal. It's not their first time. It's not as though they have anything important to discuss tonight.

He's busy - a neurosurgeon, after all.

 _It's okay. It's okay._

She will forget this ever happened, like she always does.

 _Kind of._

Checking her phone - _nothing_ , not even a missed call or a reply.

 _It's okay. It's okay._

She'll wait because she's only been waiting for most of three years.

But impatience turns to annoyance and that becomes hate and she clenches the blanket on her lap tightly around herself and her cold toes curls under her delectably.

She feels ridiculous in this fucking dress.

 _He's not coming._

She kind of, sort of had anticipated it.

 _Really?_

 _Fine. She didn't saw it coming at all._

So much for hoping. So much for signs. So much for trying.

Her _plan_ \- yes,because she only has one thing in mind to accomplish tonight and that is, unsurprisingly so, to pass out right here on the couch.

 _Why not?_

She'll drink past cognitive ability, until she becomes too tired to even drag herself upstairs.

 _Sounds fun._

She's going to get stupid drunk that she'll feel like crap in the morning.

 _That's a plan._

She'll get so ridiculously wasted that she'll vow off -

There's a knocking on the door and that, for some reason, grates on her nerves, but also, soothes a ragged piece inside her too.

 _Derek!_

It's all going to be okay now because he's here.

He's finally home.

But she doesn't even stop to think why he knocked on the door, instead of just using his own set of keys like he always does.

Power walking - _no_ , more like running to the door, she swings the front door open with a smile that quickly turned upside down when it actually registers in her head that the man before her isn't Derek.

" _Ouch_."

It's just Mark.

She groans, arms coming up to wrap tightly around her torso.

He watches her steadily and the second he really _really_ sees her and what she's wearing, barely wearing, his eyes widen, mouth open in a gasp and she sees him slide up and down her length, like she's the only person he's ever laid eyes on and it brings heat rushing to her cheeks.

"What?"

"Nothing." he says, shaking his head and laughing at the same time. She's curious as to what's so funny. "I'm sorry. It's just — you look like a five thousand dollar an hour escort."

Her eyes narrows, scrutinising, and her nose wrinkles much to her disgust at him. "Go to hell," she grinds out before slamming the door in his face.

"Hey, Addie!"

She won't open the door, that's pretty much a guarantee.

She doesn't even acknowledge it when he rings the doorbell incessantly like an obnoxious child.

"Addison!"

 _See, she can't even hear him._

She glances at the hall table where an arrangement of orchids and gladioli used to sit there, spilling over the lip of a vase, a hint of the tropics sill teasing her nose even though the flowers have long since withered and died.

"Addie," he calls, draws out her name in a way that makes her skin feel tight. "Open up. It was meant to be a compliment."

 _Compliment?_

She crosses her arms over her chest and ignores his request. "Go away," she says, winces at the petulant tone of her voice. In his presence, she always seems to turn into the loser, desperate teenager she once was. "Go home."

" _Red_ , come on, it was just a joke."

"I said go home — your own home."

"I thought you'd find it funny. We do this all the time."

She looks at herself through a reflection at the window and frowns at what she sees.

 _Funny?_

Maybe she's gone too far and overboard with the red lips and the hair and she suppose her red dress is too short and revealing for a dinner at Drago and her heels are too stripper-esque for classy. Or maybe it's just the distorted reflection of the window that's severely flawing how she looks or maybe it's all in her head.

She just really wanted tonight to work out.

"Why on earth would I find you calling me a prostitute funny?"

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no," he says quickly, all in one breath, "I said escort — _es-cort —_ not prostitute. They're not the same thing."

"Only you would know."

She goes to get a sweater to cover herself up. She's too old to be dressing as she is.

It's quiet now outside - he's gone quiet when she returns. But she can still hear and feel his presence at the door and like her, he must have too because just as quickly, he starts all over again. "Addison, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm sorry — really sorry."

She fixes a glare at the closed door, like Mark's developed x-ray vision along with eternal life and super speed. "Please, Red," he says, his voice dropping to a low plea. "In fact you actually look incredibly ... _nice_."

There's a long pause.

 _Incredibly nice._

Then, she hears him shuffle a little and she moves a step closer to the door.

"Are you going to open the door? I think it's going to rain, Addie."

She scoffs, prepares to call him out for the liar that he is, but then she remembers she's alone in this house and in need of a little human interaction. Slowly, she opens the door to let him in.

His eyes gleam as he takes her in once again, but then quickly furrows at the sight of the cardigan. "What's with the grandma sweater?" he asks as soon as he's inside. He reaches with one hand to tug at the material on her shoulder.

She shudders internally when the back of his hand skims her skin and takes a step back.

"I'm cold."

He looks sad, she thinks. Or maybe that's just her own reflection in his eyes. Or, you know, maybe it is what it is - _they_ don't particularly like themselves very much. She guess they've just proven that saying about eyes don't lie.

 _Misery. Misery. Misery._

"Wine?"

Regardless of his answer, she's already heading to the kitchen to grab a bottle herself, already decided long before he showed up that she's in need for more alcohol in her system to function amicably.

He just smiles agreeably at her and makes himself at home on the couch, then he picks up the bottle of alcohol on the apothecary she's already started to drain dry. "This is the Macallan 1926 Derek got from that underground auction three years ago," he raises an eyebrow at her, "And you hate whiskey."

The smirk is telling her that he couldn't care less about the alcohol, he looks more fascinated and intrigued by her defiance. But that's also a lot more beguile than she wants him to be.

"I hate a lot of things, Mark ... who cares?"

 **xxx**

He thinks she still spins fairytales for dreams, magical fantasies full of princes and princesses and happily ever afters, that she's still waiting for her white knight to come and sweep her off her feet and make her feel safe, like John did for Marlena in Days of Our Lives when she still believed in things like soap operas and romance novels and true love and soulmates - all the things she held dear before ... well, you know, before _life_ happened, before people broke her heart and before her father betrayed her trust, before her entire world collapsed around her.

He doesn't think she understands those kinds of things, mean, messy things like betrayal and lies, doesn't think a pretty, perfect princess could comprehend the darker side of life. But she's not pretty, not in the ways that count - and she's not a princess - and she's far from perfect.

Yes, she might be on the surface, with her designer clothes and long legs and silky hair, but inside - she's _ugly_ , or at the very least, broken ... just like him.

There's this strange glint in her eyes.

 _Guilt. Grief. Pain._

He pushed her away. He made her cry. He kissed her anyway.

She was ready. He was afraid. He said horrible things to her because he knows he's not good enough for her.

He could see it in her eyes, that he had been replaced. She got back with Derek and they started a family.

Now everything is finished, everything is blown to pieces, everything is back to where they started.

He paused. She's paused now too.

They're both fucking alone.

 _Again._

The trouble is not that he's _single_ and will likely stay _single_ , but that he is _lonely_ and will likely stay _lonely_.

They're both sitting on opposite ends of the couch, elbow against the armrest, palm under cheek and watching TV - or, at least, just looking at it.

She's staring wistfully at a couple making out and he averts his gaze ( _sometimes_ _his nanny and her thick Polish accent still rings in his head_.). He looks at her, only her, the profile of her tipping her head back and draining the red in her wine glass.

There's a drought now in his mouth as he watches her swallow, gulp, her throat bobbing with the alcohol going down.

He imagines.

He imagines his tongue there, stroking against the sensitive skin along her jugular, tasting her reaction to him, and the thick, hot pulse of her blood.

He wants her to -

"Do you believe it's true?"

He startles, quickly blinks her out of his mind the moment he hears her voice again, and he mumbles something that resembles a pardon. "Do you believe it's true — that it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all?"

This time, he restrains himself from rolling his eyes because she's Addison and she's _sort of_ his friend. He downs Derek's prized scotch whiskey first – using that term loosely – before answering her. "I don't know. I've never been in love."

They both know that's a blatant lie and for a moment there she almost looks as though she's about to call him out on it when she squints at him, her head turning sideways.

 _Thinking. Analysing. Studying._

But she must have decided otherwise because her attention is back at the television as quickly as this conversation ended.

Well, he's never been that honest with a girl either.

She leans over the apothecary to reach for the whiskey and pours it into her wine glass - a lot more than a double, he must add.

He tells her it's a seventy-five thousand dollar bottle and that Derek will definitely notice the missing contents.

She doesn't stop. She doesn't acknowledge his presence.

"It's not wine, Addie. Take it slow."

She stops and looks at him. But he doesn't think she stopped on his account.

He's lonely. And he's lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, he can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs and it scares the shit out of him to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.

So, he imagines - imagines Addison smiling at him instead of scowling like she is now. Smiling that loose, fluid smile and brushing his hair back from his face.

She would lean closer, so he would be able to smell the Chanel and booze seeping through her pores and breath as she tells him he's sweet.

But he's not sweet and he's not very nice. He will always be a man and a Sloan, so he reaches across the space and presses his mouth to hers just because he can.

 _(it's his own imagination, remember?)_

Her mouth opens with his and her fingers move from his forehead to tangle in the hair at his nape. And then he sees her slip off the couch and onto her knees before him, her fingers working his belt, then his zipper, her eyes sharp and fixed directly on every inch of him.

 _(a boy can imagine.)_

* * *

Mark Sloan was twenty-two years old when he first felt his heart beat again.

It wasn't as if he had converted to romanticism or anything. Neither was it that significant of a phenomenon, really - _well, not exactly._

Words cannot fully comprehend, cannot exactly describe how he feels about her, so that's how insignificant and unimportant seeing her toothy smile every morning is to him and her intensely coloured eyes almost disappearing into themselves, and how warm she makes him feel.

It's like taking a long hot shower after the cold seeped in from all of the cracks in his broken armour.

It's refreshing.

It's the most amazing feeling.

Though it had been fourteen years, it still feels relatively new to him, like he's never gotten used to it. He isn't sure how long it will last or why it even happened to him in the first place - why he fell for a girl he knows had can never have.

 _Why?_

But sometimes, he catches himself staring at her.

His heart would thump faster whenever he sees her, regardless of whose certain best friend she has linked around her arm. He would hear his own blood pulsing in his veins when her perfume invades his senses or when her red hair tickles his skin and every time she even so merely looks at him, he feels a burst of energy.

He feels safe and ... _happy_ , but it's also nauseating like food poisoning or a hangover the morning after a binge of trying _(and failing.)_ to stop images of her from infringing his thoughts and mind.

But it's - _she's_ comfortable and _she's_ exciting.

She feels like home.

But she's the home he can't go home to.

It's like being lost in the right direction, like he's trailing in a path of glitter.

Long before he made the conscious decision to break his own heart, numb it down, force himself to feel nothing and do everything without regret, his heart - he had a beating heart; it wasn't all that bruised, worn out and wounded.

Not yet.

It was at five when he had done just that, the first time his father looked into his eyes and saw something else, something from before, something that was in forever after.

Someone that was lost in the clouds of dusty dreams and embraced end.

He knows he resembles his late mother, and it had been clear then as it is now, _loath_ reflecting in the man's dark eyes each time he stared down at him and he remembers watching Derek's father lift his children onto his shoulders and whispered encouragements in their ears and wishes for his father to do the same.

Mallory Sloan (née Hofstadt), death by acute drug poisoning.

 _(commonly known as an overdose.)_

Arthur Sloan, capable of nothing more than hating his only son.

It's this that he thought about as he blinks up at the ceiling above him - Addison is still wistfully looking at the TV - nothing blurring into a symphony of hallucinations.

Before he fell too hard and too deep for Addison Montgomery _(she wasn't yet a Shepherd.)_ , he had a thing for blondes.

His mother was blonde and in his earliest memory of her, she was playing with a mane of long, thick, blonde hair, pulling it up and letting it fall, preparing for a night out with his father. He watched her through the mirror, noting the brittle smile and fragile gaze in her eyes. He was only five-years-old but already knew how it would go, how the evening will end.

He didn't tell her not to leave him alone again that night.

At midnight she crawled into bed beside him and held him close, her tears staining the thin cotton of his pyjamas. His father had a meeting, or a surprise work trip, or a new underage girlfriend ( _one of them, or all three of them_.) - although he didn't learn of that last one until he was closer to twelve.

Mallory Christine Sinclair was old money before his father made her a Sloan, and she lulled him to sleep with a whiff of Chanel on her skin and expensive brandy on her breath.

His mother was a model before his father made her a Sloan, and her limbs were long and slender and fluid as they wrapped around him, filling him with soft and warm and the only thing he knew as home.

His mother was happy before his father made her a Sloan and when she wished him sweet dreams that night, he actually believed they could come true.

So he didn't tell her all the things he so indefinitely needed her to know.

That he didn't like watching TV alone at night.

That he didn't like the dark.

That he didn't like hearing her cry.

That he didn't like his father's temper.

That he didn't like to be left alone, even with the housekeeper.

He didn't like not knowing where they were or the time they would be back or whether they'd even be back at all.

There was a single strand of blonde hair on his pillow when he woke up in the morning, and he watched as it caught in the sunlight, peeping between curtains that an unknown housekeeper with an unknown face had thoughtfully drawn.

He learned his lesson quickly, early, before he really understood what it means, and when he sat down for breakfast with his glassy-eyed mother, she told him that all that glitter isn't gold.

 _He hears she's one in a million._

Her fingers shook around his when she deposited him at the playground in kindergarten, and when she makes small talk with Carolyn Shepherd, her laugh is higher and twitchier than he remembers.

He wanted to go look for Derek, desperately, because he had to get away from this version of his mother. So he slipped his hand out of hers, she was too distracted to even notice, and bolted to look for his best friend. But he couldn't find him, he was sure he Derek was off somewhere staring at his shoes or books or at Bridget Reagan. As he started wandering again, he felt tingles crawl up his skin when he heard his mother laugh at another one of Carolyn's bad jokes.

He ran faster and still didn't find Derek but what he did find was blonde hair, half tied up and half down, and a red ribbon trailing towards the ground.

He picked it up, like his mother taught him to, and politely tell the blonde girl that he has her ribbon.

She turned to face him and he liked how she smells, flowery and sweet.

He didn't tell her that, though.

She held out a hand for her ribbon. She's skinny and all legs and about two inches taller than him.

She smiled and giggled as their fingers brush when he passed the ribbon to her, and it's wide and bright and beautiful; he ignored the fact that she was missing two of her front teeth.

"Thank you."

He couldn't stop himself when she laughed, real and honest and _happy_ and filled with all the things he doesn't remember, so he pushed up on his tip toes, scuffing the tip of his new loafers, and pressed a gentle kiss to her wide mouth.

It only lasted a second, probably even less, but she didn't scream, didn't cry, just pushed him away with another laugh and ran across the playground to a redhead, the red ribbon trailing in her wake.

She was bigger than him because she's a girl and he's a boy. But they were both still five-years-old. And he sat flat on his butt until Derek ran up to him, his big head of curls bouncing in every direction made him laugh a little, he held out a hand, helping him up.

"We should tell Ms. Eriksen that she pushed you, Mark."

"No, she's my friend."

He looked for her at recess, it was easy to spot her blonde hair glittering in the sunlight across the playground.

 _There's a hole in his heart and it's bleeding._

He was the one who found _her_ \- eyes closed, hands folded, hair falling in a golden curtain across the pillow.

There were pills and there was a bottle of barely there brandy and when he rested his head on his mother's chest - there wasn't a steady beat beneath his ear anymore.

He called Derek's mother, and not his father, because he remembered his mother telling him that he could always trust her with anything. He didn't think he could be alone by himself with strangers in his home when they take his mother away. He was scared and he didn't know what else to do other than to sit quietly beside her and wait for Aunt Carolyn.

He learned his lesson well again, because there's nothing glittering anymore.

 _He feels tortured with regret._

There was a funeral he barely remembers, a visit to the cemetery he wants to forever forget, and too many people swarming the penthouse in the aftermath.

Derek was with him most of the time, quiet and confused but at his side nonetheless because it's what he's supposed to do.

He's his bet friend.

The brunette Derek liked from their class came by and said she was sorry and he has a vague memory of dark curls and polished Mary Janes, but he didn't really look at her and she only looked at Derek and none of it really mattered to him anyway. Then, the blonde girl from the playground showed up with her mother and stepfather-number-two and a dark ribbon restraining the golden hair falling down her back.

She followed him when he had to get away, his father's eyes were already narrowing and piercing at him as he escaped to the balcony and away from people he don't really know and want to talk to even less.

It was cloudy and cool but the sun still found a way to peek through the clouds and turned her hair to spun gold. He sucked in a breath, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, and it's the first time he had cried since he realised his mother had been absent from his life for years but is truly gone for good now.

He wiped angrily at the tears because he is a Sloan and he is not a baby, and she looked away then, to pretend she didn't see the tears. The girl didn't say a word and he's grateful, because talking too much is all anyone had done since he rang the Shepherds after finding his mother. She sat with him while it got darker and colder and the light disappeared from the sky.

"I really am sorry," she said when it's too dark, too cold, too empty to stay outside any longer.

He nodded, because he isn't ready for words, and reached up to press a gentle kiss to her cheek, the way he remembers his mother would when saying goodbye to her friends. She didn't push him this time, but her cheeks turn bright pink and she rushed back to the penthouse before he could say thank you.

She was long gone when he was getting ready for bed and found three blonde hairs clinging to the fine wool of his jacket. He wrapped them in a handkerchief, a Sloan dutifully embroidered in one corner, and buried them in the bottom of his sock drawer.

"No," he chokes on his breath and Addison looks at him, a question on her face, "My answer to your question."

She's still confused but he's not going to say it, not going to repeat the question she asked.

He don't think she's in the mood to make him anyway.

 _No. He doesn't think it's better to have loved and lost than never love at all._

He blinks up at the ceiling again and again, hand tracing for the stitching on the couch.

Mark Sloan was twenty-two when he first felt his heartbeat, and it was Addison _Shepherd_ who forced it out for him.

He'll never forgive her for it.

But he'll never forget her either.

* * *

 _ **to be continued ...**_

 _ **Thank you so much for reading. ;) Hope you enjoyed and please leave a review.**_


	3. the night in question (2)

_A very huge thank you to everyone who reviewed. I'm glad you all enjoyed the last chapter and are liking this story._

 _So here we go again with more **Maddek** **Madness**._

 _Review!_

* * *

 **A Tale of _AddisonandDerekandMark_ : Unhinged**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

 _ **the night in question**_ _ **(2)**_

-:-

 _"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. The sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me."_

 _\- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed_

* * *

And so it begins.

A girl carrying pieces of a slanted heart and a boy who claims to be empty inside.

They skirt around fragile passion, catastrophe disguised as lust.

They ask each other only for an escape - he from the dark clouds looming in his mind, her from the cracked version of herself in the mirror, from the dampened dream of perfection that had slipped away. Maybe it was an infatuation or an obsession - anything but tainted love. They are dripping in fear as they traipse around like chess pieces across a board of emotions, in a game that belonged to neither of them.

His move, her move, and then again. His move, her move. And it was fine that way. It all worked fine for Addison and Mark ... at first.

Because sometimes, you just need to find someone whose demons play well with your own, she realises.

She's out of wine - no, _they're_ out of wine and she announces this out loud for him to know of their unfortunate predicament. Or maybe she's just a little past tipsy and her mouth is loose. _Maybe. Maybe_. But before he could offer to get a bottle from the kitchen, she stands to do it herself and everything in the room spins with her.

 _Dizzy. Light headed. Faint._

Nursing a killer headache is going to be most of her agenda tomorrow.

Comparatively, Mark and alcohol are one and the same.

 _Toxic. Bad. Cancerous._

She knows she should stay away, never engage but she just can't help herself, so she sweeps a bottle of wine from the cabinet and glides to join him back on the couch again.

Comparatively, Mark and alcohol are her best friends.

 _Sad. Sad. Sad._

She hates feeling this way. Then again, there's always pretending, she's finally does just that.

 _Fake it till you make it._

She can do that.

 _Easy-peasy._

When she hands him his wine, he blinks at her, at the pleasantry of her face.

Faking it until she makes it.

 _But make it to where?_

The smile is still lingering on his face, but there's something twisted about it now and a faint frown is stitched between his eyebrows.

"You've cheered up," he comments, but she's a detective specialising in Derek and Mark long enough to hear the reservations in his voice.

 _(perhaps that's what she needs, a complete 180 in her career. Detective Shepherd does have a nice ring to it.)_

"So?" she says, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"It's just you were upset earlier, and now you're ... not — Well, slightly not."

His accusation adds a little of the weight and irritation back on, but she plasters a smile at him anyway. "Maybe I've taken something."

"Have you?"

"No," she snaps, "God, no, Mark. Of course I haven't ... Why can't I be happy just because?"

"I'm glad you're happy, really, but you don't do just because. I just don't understand where this quick change came from. It's a little disconcerting."

"What? Because I'm not sulking anymore — I'm not brooding," she raises her eyebrows, "What, what is it? I don't get why you're making a big deal out of nothing."

And now she's getting angry.

"You don't have to pretend with me is all I'm saying."

She sighs, tired, "No, I know."

"Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Anything ... What are you thinking about?"

She's always thinking about _him_.

She swirls the wine around in her glass before taking a sip. "I was upset ... obviously," she admits, "I don't know what is it. It's not even about being happy anymore. I'm just trying to get through each day, each moment — I can't keep asking myself _'Am I happy?'_ It just makes me more miserable," she says, then added, "I'm so tired of feeling like this. It doesn't make sense because I _have_ everything ... _had_ everything, I guess, but even then, I was still a little sad. I don't know if it's me or because — Mark, I don't know if I believe in it anymore, real lasting happiness. All those perky, well adjusted people you see in movies and TV shows? I don't think they exist ... but I want that, real lasting happiness." she speaks slowly, as if she has to control herself from screaming every word of it so the universe can hear her plea.

She wants to be happy _again_.

Closing the gap between them, he scoots across the cushions and faces her. "You want to know the secret to happiness?"

She makes a non-committal noise under her breath.

"The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep ourselves busy with unimportant nonsense and eventually, we'll be where we're all waiting to be."

She remains composed, the lively twinkle in her eyes unfaded. She's amused with his exegesis.

"Why do you think we're all miserable? We're all searching for something that does not exist."

The other secret to happiness is to numb the pain. To put something on top of it. Food, green juice, anything to numb the pain.

 _Pain?_

 _Derek?_

 _Remember?_

She - she wants to put something on top of _it_ , but she doesn't have anything.

* * *

 _ **. . . 1997 . . .**_

* * *

They name him Jesse.

Well, Derek's mother did. And while she wanted to do it herself, she kindly let Carolyn do the honour in naming her first grandson.

 _(she also needed those extra points to permanently get on mom's good side.)_

They hadn't discussed having kids until almost two years into their marriage. It was late one night when she was boneless and satiated and tired of holding back. His eyes had lit up when she had agreed to stop taking her pill at the end of the month and see what would happen.

From everything she had heard and seen and learned throughout the years, she reckoned it would have taken them months, enough time for her to actually process the idea of a baby - at the very least two months of slow and long process that would have left her feeling empty and desperately wanting - and change her mind.

It hadn't even taken a month, though.

Now, she creeps into Derek's study at quarter to four in the morning after being called out for a delivery late at night. That's usually the time babies decides it's time to come see the world. She knows she should get used to it by now, but still, even as a resident, every time she wakes to her beeping pager, it always feel like the first time.

She's tired and heavy, finds her husband asleep at the chair, legs propped up on the table and their son resting against his chest.

She smiles, moving quietly to their side and stroking their son's downy hair before she lifts him from his sleeping father's arms.

He's barely two months old and still has that new baby smell that makes her chest tight. He rouses slightly when she tugs him to her, cradling him and he lets out a tiny yawn as his hands curl into fists and push out when he settles again.

 _Precious._

After, she nudges Derek's shoulder with her hip, calling his name softly.

"Der."

It takes a moment for him to wake up, but soon he's blinking and staring up at her with the same eyes their son had inherited from him.

"Addie?"

He's still drowsy, confused.

 _Adorable_.

"You fell asleep."

Derek's eyes widen comically, hands flying to his chest when he realises their son is no longer there. "Jesse —"

"— is fine. See?"

He looks down at the baby in her arms, visibly sagging with relief. She smiles softly and he stands, wincing when his knee cracks loudly and she teases him about being old. It earns him a sleepy glare from him.

Moving into their bedroom, she lowers Jesse onto his bassinet. He shifts in his sleep, fidgety, as she dusts kisses against his silk soft forehead. He tries to grab her fingers before she eases away and he settles back to sleep.

Derek's already slipped into bed, but she stands, watching over their son.

He's so small.

When he was born, the midwives around her had complimented her on how big their son was - born eight pounds and seven ounces. That hadn't surprised her, both Derek and her were pretty hefty at birth too.

 _"You know, dear, I was beautiful before I got pregnant with you."_

Her mother had always reminded her how she ruined her body. Not Archer, though - no, after having him, her body quickly shrunk back to how it was.

Jesse - he's _still_ small.

She didn't hear Derek when he moved to her side, having thought he had fallen back to sleep, so she startles slightly when his voice curls around her ear.

"You okay?"

She tears away from their son.

"Yea," she nods and shifts a little, turning on her side to drop her head against his shoulder, "I'm just — there will come a time when he'll go off to college ... then he'll have a life of his own ... wife and kids and grandkids. And I know it's selfish to say this ... I don't think I'll ever be ready for that, to let him go. He's just a baby."

 _Their baby._

Derek's palm settles on the small of her back, resting his cheek atop her head, his warmth radiating through her tight muscles.

"I know. He's just a baby," he repeats, "For now, love. _For now_. Good thing we have eighteen years to get ourselves ready."

She nods, throat tight. She knows.

She does know.

 _(god, no, she doesn't.)_

* * *

There is an awful tendency that human beings have and that is to fall back into old habits, re-memorise failed patterns in order to feel almost as nice as they once did, to seek solace in comfort, and comfort in the darkest crevices of their lives.

Toxicity has always tasted sweet to him, which is exactly why he missed her - completely, wholly, and irrevocably for the two days that he hadn't seen her.

Addison _Shepherd_ had stolen bits and pieces of him, rewritten his misery into something he craved liked nothing else.

Two days prior, their encounter was brief. They had a greasy pizza together before she was paged back to the hospital. And as abrupt as that night was he returned home _(his own home.)_ with love-soaked blood coarsing through his veins and her scent clouding his senses for days.

But gravity is a cruel reminder; without her, he is still tethered to the ground.

And now he listens to her voice, slightly slurred and slightly breathless, but stern and adamant.

He listens to her complain about _her_ husband ... _his_ best friend.

He listens, he drinks and he pours her another and another.

He listens because he's the one who had encouraged her to talk.

He listens, then he stops drinking and stops pouring her drinks too. But she only seems to be drunker than she was five minutes ago.

He wonders which drunk-Addison will come out of the shadows tonight.

 _"I mean he still doesn't have the decency to call me and tell me he'll be home late."_

 _"He doesn't have surgery. He's somewhere ignoring me."_

 _"... We made plans weeks ago. I switched shifts with Dr. Geller. He isn't the only one busy, I am too. But I always make sure to put my marriage first."_

 _"I don't think he's coming home at all tonight."_

 _"You don't have to be here, Mark. It's getting late."_

 _"I texted, he said eight was fine. Just a word, fine, and that was that. And of course, I didn't just leave it as it is, I had to text him, 'I love you' and you know what his reply was ... nothing. He didn't text back."_

 _"Why are your species such assholes?"_

 _"You know, Bizzy would have me wash my mouth with soap whenever I would misbehave. Isn't that some sort of child abuse?"_

 _"I mean I'm worried here, Mark. What if something happened to him?"_

 _"Am I invisible?"_

 _"I scolded him, Mark. I said he was a very bad boy ... I grounded him for three days because he broke a stupid vase and all I remember thinking at that moment was I've become my mother. I became the person I promised to never be and the_ _next day ... the next day ..."_

 _"Why are you here more times than he is?"_

 _"I know he blames me. I blame me too."_

 _"... he can't even look at me. It's been three years."_

 _"Love can't seem to unite us. Why not hatred?"_

 _"I took my eyes off him for ten seconds, it's not my fault he's gone."_

 _"If I could just get his attention — if I could get him to notice me again ..."_

Addison Shepherd, tonight she's the sad/miserable/angry drunk, who counts her misery.

That's a triple threat, and not the good kind.

He should run - run for his life while he still can.

"He still hasn't called, Mark," she frowns, slamming her phone onto the couch, then crosses her arms. Her eyes are practically closed, and her voice is low and rough. "And you — you're still here — sometimes — sometimes I really want to hate you," she clears her throat then, sighing while patting his thigh with her hand. "But I can't."

 _Hate._

He can't say her words didn't leave his heart tattered in bruises because that would be the kind of lie that sets pants on fire.

He exhales harshly as she continues, essentially biting his tongue all the while, contemplating how they have managed to allow their situation to become so impossibly screwed up and twisted.

"Someone should invent an undo button that can undo long amounts of time. Fifteen years. Three years. A year. A lifetime even. One click and everything could just go back to the way it was," she tells him after she's taken another large sip of her drink.

She's in a lot of pain - he knows she is and he wants to help. He's never seen her so beaten down and defeated - not like this, no - all he wants is to make it stop for her, make her stop before she pushes herself too far to the point where he'll have no way to reel her back in _(again)._ But he doesn't know what to do anymore; talking to Derek about it doesn't seem to be doing much of anything, really.

"Like a time machine, you mean?"

"No. Like an undo button where everything else stays the same, only the mistake doesn't."

* * *

 _ **. . . 1980 . . .**_

* * *

She used to sit with her back flush against the wall, eyes shut tight and heart bracing hard against the ache that nevertheless swept, through her like a plague, landing somewhere unceremoniously where it would do the most damage ... like - _she_ _don't know_ \- a bloodsucking insect that craved trembling lips and salty tears. But most of all, the dull pain in her entire being.

She learned to also cry silently too, because children should be _(barely)_ seen and not heard.

And when she scraped her knee on the church steps at her aunt's fourth wedding, Addison bore her mother's exasperation _("Couldn't you have been more careful? That dress is one-of-a-kind.")_ as Esmeralda, her nanny, cleaned the wound and poured fire onto the raw skin.

"Look at what you've done. Now it's ruined," her mother spat, then added on a long-suffering sigh before leaving both nanny and daughter alone.

She sucked in a breath until she was sure the threat of tears were completely gone.

"It's good to let it out, Addison."

"No, it's not. You don't understand," she snapped back, still sitting primly atop the paper towels Esmeralda had been thoughtful enough to set there.

Public washrooms, even the ones with an attendant, really, are questionable in terms of salubrity. "Could you let yourself out, Esmeralda? I'd really like to be alone."

Her nanny, with concern in her eyes and a wan smile, nodded and let herself out - again, a thoughtful gesture. She knew her loyal nanny would be standing guard just outside until she was done letting _it_ out herself.

Fresh tears brimmed.

Alone, she gave the waterworks free reign, but not too much. Bad enough to know that her nanny knew - she always did.

 **xxx**

Then, it happened one night while her mother was in France for another one of her charities _("There is still so much that needs to be done. I cannot take care of a two children on top of that, Esmeralda.")_ and her father was supposedly coming back from France the day her mother flew across the country.

His sole purpose of the trip, she came to learn tonight was to hide his mistresses from his wife. But he had abysmally failed already because her father is never great at keeping his indiscretions discreet. He always _always_ does something so careless to get caught.

It's like he doesn't really care that Bizzy knows or that she'll find out.

He's grandiose, exploitative and entitled and he enjoys flaunting the things he has, money and women and both. But she loves her father dearly - always will, no matter what he does or says, even if he leaves.

And maybe it's all her fault why he's not coming home tonight, she thinks to herself as she stares at the plump pie she had baked all by herself for her father's homecoming.

She's been waiting for the Captain for over two hours now.

She's not sure what she ought to do right now; Archer's asleep and Esmeralda as well.

She could drain her father's prized scotch, but then again, she's come to learn that she has a dislike for that particular amber liquor.

It was three days ago that she had had her first drink and she can still taste that awfulness on her tongue and it's been more than seventy-two hours of vigorous gurgling now.

She had caught Archer and his friends at the skate park while she was on her way home from ballet and said she had always been curious as to the taste.

They laughed at her because and she doesn't understand why they would automatically assumed that she wouldn't have the stomach for scotch; they don't know her at all.

Her brother just told her to go straight home.

Later on that same afternoon, a friend of Archer's, a dusty blonde, came up to her while she was reading a book in the backyard and pushed a flask towards her.

She eyed the boy for a while then at the dark amber liquid uncertainly. Nevertheless she took a sip of the scotch and it went down terribly, like a shot of fire burning her innards.

She wondered how people could drink this stuff and live to tell the tale.

Maybe that was the point.

She took another sip and it still tasted like liquid fire.

She took one more and she nearly hacked out her guts.

"Don't taste it," he wisely advised. "Just shoot it down your throat."

So since then _(and hopefully she'll never be in a position again where she's desperate enough to drown herself in liquor.),_ she had sworn off scotch for the rest of her life. But - but she had also learned to appreciate the burn as bile creep up and roar up her throat, while tears threaten to debilitate her - a lady always keeps her cool, she constantly reminds herself.

 _Something is wrong?_

Something is definitely wrong right now.

 _Get it out. Purge it out. Forget about it._

No use crying over _absentees_ , for God's sake.

The Captain isn't coming home tonight.

"You should smile more, you look _pretty_ ," the dusty blonde's voice seems to call to her from a long-ago echo, soft and almost a breath, and she still isn't sure if she's heard it, truthfully.

She isn't pretty.

Defeated, she cuts herself a large piece of pie, welcomes the knowledge of the oncoming burn in her oesophagus, the brimming hot tears, the dull certainty that she will now be powerless against her own actions.

She's ugly, she realises that not for the first time.

* * *

The night takes a turn.

She sulks. She broods. She drinks and becomes angrier. She drinks some more and she doesn't forget. She drinks more than she should and everything dulls; the lights, the heaviness of her head on her shoulders, the noise the glass makes every time she deposits it back on the apothecary table for him to fill. All of it, really - well, except for the images in her head and the sounds of the car screeching and the smell of blood.

She's drunk.

She's drunk but she's not drunk _enough_ because she can still rationalise her slurred words and swaying vision into a definition. And she's still sober enough because she realises that he's stopped pouring her drinks fast enough, so she reaches to snatch the bottle for herself when he seals his palm over her hand.

She guess she's more drunk than sober.

"I think we should stop."

She ignores him and tightens her hold on the bottle.

"Your head is going to be sore in the morning —"

"— Good," Some physical pain to outweigh the ones in her mind. "You stop if you want."

He tries a softer approach. "Don't do this Addie. Come on, you don't —" But she manages to snatch the bottle from him anyway. No longer impeded by his grasp, it's clear he's failed.

She pours and drinks and pours and drinks and suddenly her eyes are burning with tears but she pushes them away, furious.

She misses _him_.

Mark takes her head in each of his hands so she'll look at him, only that doesn't work either because she can always _always_ close her eyes when he looks at her like that.

"Addie," His voice is like a caress, soothing and electrifying her all at once, and she can't take it. Knows that if he continues, she'll break and she doesn't get to break.

"Don't."

" _Red_ ," he tries again, voice a whisper, and she absolutely knows with every fibre in her that he's finding it hard to swallow; looking at her like _he'll_ fall if _she_ does; waiting for her eyes to open so he can search them in a bid to eradicate this overwhelming crippling guilt that's been gnawing away at her insides for over a decade.

He thinks he's helping but he never is - not really anyway.

"Why did you have to kiss me?" her omission is no higher than a whisper but he hears it, lets go of her as he goes cold at the break of her voice. "Why do you have to mess with my head all the time?"

"Addison, I —" he reaches out to take her again but she pushes away.

"Stop it."

He's beginning to feel like they will never escape this cycle of push and pull they've somehow found themselves trapped in for far too long now. "I don't know. I wasn't really thinking —"

"That's your problem, Mark. You don't ever think about the consequences."

Feeling frustrated and endlessly confused, he feels something snap inside him. "I feel like this isn't even about me," he wonders, his shoulders slightly hunched, voice smooth and quiet. "Are you really angry at me —"

"I'm angry at myself for letting _this_ come this far."

* * *

 _ **. . . 1991 . . .**_

* * *

It was late May when Mark went to the campus library after having to speak with his academic adviser about his steeply declining GPA ( _it wasn't bad but it wasn't_ _great either_.) and untimely attendance, deciding it's best that he get an early start on next semester's curriculum.

He wants to do better, yield better results, maybe even top three, because, like what his adviser had said, it will only get tougher and tougher. Besides rotations are coming up, so he really _really_ has to focus now.

No more joking around.

Because he's so close now, just two more years until he gets that ' _MD_ ' title forever etched at the end of his name,

 _Mark Everett Sloan, M.D._

He can't give up. He mustn't give up. He won't give up. Because that will only prove his father right.

He will be a doctor. He will be successful. He will amount to something in life. Because he is not an embarrassment to the family name.

He could have done better - _yes, he knows_ \- could have studied harder, could have made better choices, could have not enjoyed himself as much as he had during the exam period and the many weeks prior too - _yes, he knows that_.

 _Effort_. _Effort. Effort_. He could have put in more of that into his academic life instead of his social life - _yes, he knows that too_.

But then again, it also wasn't as if he had done so poorly that he had failed his second year. Because a _three-point-two-eight_ isn't the end of the world and with his kind of lifestyle, he thinks he should be considered as gifted.

While _he_ has the potential to graduate with praise, that was what the adviser said ( _well, he might have actually used the term 'everyone in general'_.) - the choices he makes and the distractions he accepts will only blur his sight to the finish line.

 _His real source of distraction, though?_

A certain redhead.

And his overtly exuberant choices in life is certainly so she would stop taking up so much space in his head.

He just wants to do something light and fun to distract him and numb him from the deep well of sadness that is his life.

And this morning, he's found her perched on his favourite window seat towards the back of the library, behind the abandoned reserves, where the old hags at the front desk are too lazy to get up and check for ... well, you know, funny business.

"Red," he drawls, plopping down at the other end of the throw pillow, eyeing her intently. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He's just being polite. He's always polite to a lady.

She lets out a crisp, exasperated sigh, her eyes flitting up to him for a second before returning to her book. "My misfortune, apparently."

"Hmm," he laughs - oh, how he enjoys the way she speaks to him. "So coy."

He, then, reaches over to tap the spine of her book, his hand never missing a chance to brush along her knee. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Why?" she retorts, "Actually, I am surprised that you are here. I didn't know you even knew where the library was — Are you stalking me, Mark?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he smirks, "Someone watching your every move ... all the _attention_ just for you," he shrugs, a proud grin on his face, "So what if I am?"

She huffs, rolls her eyes as she turns her attention back at her book, lifting it up as a barrier between their faces.

Addison must know he loves a good challenge.

 _(she does.)_

 _Oh, it's always intentions on her part._

He laughs, making sure to touch her hand - _icy cold_ \- when he gently pushes the book down, holding it to her lap and he waits. But still, she blatantly ignores him, focusing on the pages in front of her.

"So, where's your _boyfriend_?" he tries again, drumming his fingers up and down her leg. He knows that _that_ mention of her beau will draw her attention back to him, like a moth to a flame.

She eyes the fingers resting slightly above her knee, then glares up at him, looking as though she's wanting to say something, but ultimately she voices nothing instead.

 _Nothing but silence._

Usually, when girls would play hard to get, this would be his point of retreat. But with Addison … she is something else.

 _Special. Unique. Exciting._

There is this ... _something_ about her he really enjoys. Perhaps, it's the chase, the challenge, games, he's not so sure, but it's great because it's what's keeping him _here_ , with her — something masochistic, maybe.

"Where's _Derek_?" he goes on, still persistent.

She lets out a sharp breath this time and the book snaps shut, nearly closing in on his fingers.

"Mark," she looks up at him, square and straight and scary, and he can see the irritation - _or fascination?_ \- playing behind her eyes. "Why ask me?"

"Answering a question with a question? That's a bit _juvenile_ , don't you think?"

"Is that a problem?"

His eyes crinkle at the corners and she chews on the inside of her cheek to keep her face from splitting. But it came away anyway, tugging until her whole face lit up.

He grins at her too.

 _Hook, line, and sinker._

"I'm afraid Derek won't be gracing us with his presence for another month or two," he says, even though he knows she knows very well of the reason as to why.

The entire Shepherd clan has gone up to Connecticut for the summer to be with their ailing grandmother and since he's not exactly family, he chose to stay behind.

 _Alone._

She regards him momentarily too long, eyes narrowing, brows creasing and lips pursing, and she continues to stare on. And there it is, he sees a genuine sadness, confusion like she's torn, and he's very well rehearsed as to why.

It's also the same way his mother used to look at him.

 _Sadness. Confusion. Regret._

"We — Derek is your best friend, Mark."

It isn't exactly what he's expecting, but he isn't surprised either.

Addison has always had an inexplicable fixation on reminding him in mere statements like that that whatever they are doing is just plain wrong.

 _But is it, really?_

It is this golden complex she has, like she is so desperate for perfection, and Derek is as close as it gets. And he ... he is he, Mark, the imperfect.

 _You will never be like Derek._

He knows he won't, not ever, but sometimes, he wishes he could stop trying to fill himself with unimportant nonsense just to feel whole.

He wants to allow himself to love and feel feelings.

He wants Addison.

It wasn't exactly wrong, what they're doing, but it wasn't exactly pure either.

They're just friends, like Derek is, and besides they're broken up for months now.

Perfection; he's got a sudden urge to bend that desire of hers.

"He _used_ to be your boyfriend, Red. You're single now," he challenges, leaning forward. "We're doing nothing wrong." Her eyes widen at the sudden movement, heart skipping in her chest and she swallows, wringing her hands on her lap and feeling the pinch on her finger of the ring Derek had bought her long ago.

Of course, it doesn't go unnoticed by Mark. Nothing ever does. "It's a little pathetic when divorcees hold onto their wedding rings. You should really learn to let go."

He watches as a number of emotions play across her face, each one gone as quickly as the last, so fast that he can't pinpoint any of them. But he's certain his words had set her off, she's fumed, because now, she's turning away from him in her seat again.

Opening the book again, eyes looking but not really reading, she focuses on the same line over and over again, forcing herself to concentrate.

 _Whatever the exact cause and mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy, it eventually reaches a limit beyond which enlargement of muscle mass is no longer able to compensate for the increased burden._

"Did I say something wrong, Red?"

 _Whatever the exact cause and mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy, it eventually_ —

"You're wounding me, Addie."

 _Whatever the exact cause and mechanism_ —

"Why the cold —"

His hands finds her shoulders, fingers spreading to her collarbone and he watches her erupt in goosebumps.

She tenses, closing her book again. "They say that if you ignore a dog's bark long enough, it will eventually stop," she says, bitterly, "Living Environment. Chapter Four."

His lips purses in faux shock, but real amusement lightens his eyes. "You've got a clever tongue. I bet I could put it to better use."

"Oh, how charming of you," she mumbles, flashing a brief smile at him before finally moving to get up from her seat.

It is then that his hand decides to dart out of its own accord, his large fingers grasping her slight wrist and stopping her before she could go.

This is nothing, this isn't too much, isn't to pushy or clingy, yet she's losing her breath over it. She stares down at their hands and he pulls away quickly, using it to lift her chin, beckoning her to look at him.

"Tell me you remember."

She looks away, up at the ceiling, to the dusty shelves, to the larges book with tiny word - she's looking anywhere and everywhere but at him. Then, he squeezes her hand harder, yanking her down, levelling her with him.

"I know that you remember."

"I don't —"

"You remember — that night at the Vanderbilts'," he repeats.

She wonders how his eyes could darken to pitch black so fast and without warning, it was bright and so blue a second ago. But as it always is with Mark, his shift in moods is giving her whiplash and so are the memories of the night in question.

She feels like she's in a hot room being interrogated by the police and she's compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Trying to fight them away, they came anyway.

 _Unwanted. Unprecedented. Unfortunate._

A hazy night. A balcony. A birthday party. His warmth. His large hand, the one on her now, tracing across her skin — yanking, pulling, tugging.

She shut her eyes in shame, the memories tainting her mind like a plague.

It was one kiss. It was one time.

She parts her lips, lets out a breath. "So what if I do remember?" she yanks her hand away. "For you, that was just a failed conquest."

Mark shakes his head. "And for you?"

 _What difference does it make?_ , she wants to ask him.

She wants to know what he wants from her, because this just has to be some kind of sick game to him. She's nothing more than a pawn in his game.

"Addie ..."

She brings her eyes to him. "For me, it was one big _mistake_ ," His eyes narrows as she continues, "And besides, shouldn't you be somewhere preying on your next victim?"

He takes a breath and leans back on his seat, resting his elbow on the armrest. "Interesting."

"What?"

He cocks his head to a side. "What I initially considered as rudeness —" he smiles, pleased. "Turns out to be jealousy."

She scoffs as if that's the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard.

Well, it is, actually.

"Jealousy implies that one cares," she corrects. "Which I don't."

"We'll see. You've been sitting here with me for a half hour. That's awfully long for someone who doesn't care," he stands up to up to face her, glancing down at her lips. "You'll give in, Red. You and I, we're the same. We have our vices, we have our issues, let's explore them together."

She takes a step back before looking at him with a shake of her head, almost rolling her eyes but not quite, and her tongue catches between her teeth. "Don't hold your breath — As a matter of fact, please do, because that will never happen — Oh, and Derek and I, we're not broken up, we're on a break."

* * *

She sits on the edge of the couch with her back slumped, elbows digging into her knees and at the quiver of her lips, her hands go flying to her face.

Maybe if she closes her eyes and prays hard enough she could actually shrink or better yet, disappear.

She tries. She tries. She concentrates as hard as she can. She even tries praying for Mark to dissolve into pink mist.

 _(it's not harsh ... no, it's not. she just needs him gone and out of her life - at least one assisted misery never having to resurface ever again and he's the easier one to get rid of right now.)_

But, of course, none of what she had hoped happened because she's left with just enough cognitive ability to understand that Mark isn't even close to leaving her alone.

 _Maybe ever._

And it's sad, thinking about it now. Never seeing Mark, never having him around, it will all be really, really ... _sad_.

She doesn't want that.

He's the only other constant in her life other than her husband.

She doesn't know what she wants.

Well, that's the problem with life.

 _Right?_

Either you know what you want and then don't get what you want, or you get what you want and then you don't know what you want.

She wants him back.

He just listens to the broken echoes of her sobs, quiet, gasping noises that somehow draws him closer, like there's a string literally pulling him to her, where she sits slumped on the other end, her head in her hands and her back heaving.

He cannot take it any longer - hearing her cry and not doing anything.

 _No —_

Maybe he ought to pretend. Maybe that's what she wants him to do.

 _No —_

"Addison," he says softly, tentatively, hoping he wouldn't upset her any further.

She stills for only a moment at the sound of her name, then her head rises and their eyes lock briefly before she turns away with a shake of her head. But her bloodshot eyes, those lingering seconds, the sadness and shame is clear.

He thinks she's thinking of _him_.

"Addie, it's —"

"Do you really think so little of me? Am I just another number to you?" she tries to hide the tear that falls down her cheek, but he sees it.

"You're _not_ just another number to me."

"But it doesn't feel like I'm any different than any one of your ..." she shakes her head, "You _use_ me. You come over whenever you want to feel better about yourself. You treat me like I'm some dumpster you can throw all your problems in ... How is that different?" she asks, shrugging her shoulders, "And as I just said it, I realised ... I have been enabling you — I let you treat me the way you do because it feels — it feels _good_ to be noticed and wanted, to be the person you can confide in when you have a shitty day but you don't even do that anymore — you just mess with my head."

Torn about how to respond, she's got it all twisted and wrong, he thinks - he doesn't provide the filter in his head much time to work before he's already gone and shot himself in the foot. "You don't get to make me the bad guy here." His voice is oddly quiet with the declaration. At realising this to be the point of no return, he knows he can't take what he's said back - he wants to, needs to, though.

He's an asshole.

Her head snaps up sharply, nearly breaking off in order to glare at him. "What's that suppose to mean?"

The grit in her voice drives him wild.

He can't hide his annoyance anymore. "You do the same to me too. Only I'm better at tolerating it than you are." Standing now, he points at her roughly. "Do you have any idea how much it sucks to see you with someone else?"

"He's my husband, Mark," she grinds out. "And don't you blame this on me." she's standing up now, stomping her foot too to let him know she can do the same, "Fourteen years ago, remember? I opened myself to you but you didn't —"

"I know. I know. I remember what I said, stop reminding me, Addison. I know I made the biggest mistake of my life," he sighs, as he stares down at her, "But you were still in love with Derek. And you still are ..."

Biting her tongue, he can tell she has to physically stop herself there. There's more she wants to say but can't bring herself to express.

"I know that you love him more than you love me. I know that he's the perfect guy for you and I'm not. I know you won't get a divorce even though this marriage is killing you — well, the both of you —"

"Mark —"

"Wait," Waving his hands around, he viciously runs them over his face, exasperated. "Please just hear me out."

She drops back down to the couch and curls her palm over her jumping knee, closes her eyes, and tries to breathe.

"I know I'm not the perfect guy. I know you're sorry you met me. I know you hate me — well, I actually kind of hate myself a lot of the time too," he chuckles, "But when I'm with you, I, don't hate myself. I like being around you, and I don't know if I ever told you that in so many words, so I'm telling you now. I'm not sorry that I met you. I'm not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything I thought I knew about myself, that you're the one who's made me feel most alive —"

She shakes her head adamantly, cupping both of her palms over her ears. "Stop it, stop it —" but his hands reaches to hold her arms down to her sides, gripping too gently as he slides his palms down the length of her skin until he's at her wrists and able to sew his fingers in with hers, "I am a terrible person. I've made all the wrong choices and of all the choices that I've made this will prove to be the worst one, but I am not sorry that I'm in love with you. I love you, Addison. It's so horrible. Because, really, I'd die for you. I'd trade places with _Jesse_ , so you and Derek will be happy again. I love you. I love you so much it's killing me."

With her red hair and bright eyes, he loves her with everything in him. He thinks he could love her forever. And it wasn't supposed to be like this. Everything just got out of hand. He was never supposed to hurt her.

Her eyes wells up with tears, she blinks to let them fall in torrents. He's too close to her - she can count the lines in his eyes, and taste the alcohol in his breath _(or is it her breath?)_ his tears are dripping onto her skin too. It's all too much so she wretches herself out of his hold, pushes herself away. "No ..." she breathes out, as if she'd been punched in the gut. "You've gone too far, Mark. You've gone too far." she repeats, poking a pointed finger at his chest, "You haven't heard a word I said. You never listen."

He's still messing with her head.

She goes back up to her feet, then points towards the foyer, "You need to go. You need to leave." she orders, in disbelief of all that's transpired.

"I didn't ask for any of this."

"Neither did I."

"Red —"

She turns her back on him and buries a hand in her hair, digs her nails into her scalp.

"I understand ... but I just don't want to see _this_ happen again," he says, his voice suddenly at her back, his chest brushing her shoulder as he snags her wrist, gentle but firm, and he exposes the snowy white scar, peeking out from beneath her sleeve. "I never meant to hurt you, Addison."

It's like it's déjà vu and she's transported back to his dorm room in 1991, twenty-four and angry and hating herself so much, and for a split second, everything stills in the whirlwind of her mind, and she's torn between the secret thrill that the confirmation had been real all along, that she truly had not imagined those three words eight letter he whispered to her fourteen years ago, and the urge to bite out that she didn't ask for that _(the genesis of this catastrophe.)_ either.

She opens her mouth as if to say something, but nothing voices.

And she's still not sure how it happened; one moment he was standing there, helplessly staring, and the next, they're skin-to-skin and as soon as he's touching her _(or she's touching him)_ she's lost.

 _Literally and certifiably lost._

Her lips are on his too, bruising more than kissing _(everything is different now,_ _she's the one who initiated for a change, which means she_ _can't blame everything on him anymore. there is no going back from this.)_ and biting until she tastes something metallic on her tongue and it's blood.

 _Oh, God, it blood!_

She doesn't look at him, doesn't dare open her eyes. She can't bare it. _Guit. Guilt_. She's been fooling herself all this time, but not really, she knows. She wants him so much. _No. No._ She's being more selfish than she's ever been in her entire life. _Ever. Ever._

But it doesn't matter.

As soon as she dig her nails into his back, it doesn't matter.

As soon as he shove her down to the couch, it doesn't matter.

As soon as she rip her sweater off, it doesn't matter.

As soon as he climb on top of her, it doesn't matter.

As soon as her teeth sink over the tendons of her neck, it doesn't matter.

And as soon as he press inside her, they are both lost.

She's clinging to him and it's for all the wrong reasons.

 _(but she's finally,_ finally _putting something on top of_ it _and she welcomes the all-encompassing mess, that she knows she's made for herself.)_

* * *

 ** _Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this_** _Maddek Madness_ ** _._**

 ** _This is an_** _Addison+Derek+Mark fanfic_ ** _. More Addison and Derek to come in the next chapter. I promise. :)_**

 ** _Please leave a review!_**

 ** _REVIEW!_**


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